Today in Seattle and around the world, social movements are taking to the streets, striking, locking down, and engaging in multiple forms of direct action. These tactics build collective power to transform the intersecting crises of our times into opportunities for equity, healing, and sustainability. In 1919 over 65,000 workers with held their labor during the Seattle General Strike. In 1999 over 50,000 people took to the streets of Seattle and shut down the World Trade Organization’s conference.
Now 20 years later we gather to honor this history, and the power of non-violent direct action, through story-telling, trainings, and movement-building workshops, to make another world possible. Activists who were part of the mobilization share stories and lessons learned from the people’s movement which made history by successfully preventing the WTO—one of capitalism’s most powerful global institutions—from further consolidating its power. Hear from leaders of today’s movements for justice, from Washington farmworkers to global alliances. Join the WTO+20 gathering for hands-on direct action training, arts workshops, story-telling, and opportunities to plug into local organizing.
Program will include:
10:00 – 10:30
Welcome!
10:30 – 12:00
Dialogue on the significance of the 1999 WTO protests, and stories of direct action, from 1999 to today, with:
Ramon Torres & Edgar Franks, Familias Unidas por la Justicia
Paul Cheoketen Wagner, Founder of Protectors of the Salish Sea
Nancy Haque, Labor/Direct Action Network organizer in ’99, Executive Director of Basic Rights Oregon
Lisa Fithian, Author of Shut It Down: Stories from a Fierce, Loving Resistance
Deborah James, WTO activist ’99, Coordinator of Our World Is Not For Sale network, Director of International Programs, Center for Economic and Policy Research
12:00 – 12:45
Lunch
12:45 – 3:45
Training and Movement-Building Workshops (Simultaneous)
Training Workshops:
Escalating Resistance, Mass Rebellion Training with Lisa Fithian
Screen-printing with David Solnit, Direct Action Network organizer in ’99, North American Arts Organizer, 350.org
Movement-Building workshops:
Seattle’s Green New Deal with Matt Remle (Lakota) Co-founder of Mazaska Talks, and Alec Connon, 350Seattle
Campaign to permanently shut down the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, with La Resistencia
A new global economic constitution written by Amazon? What’s happening in the WTO and what can we do about it – Deborah James, Our World Is Not For Sale Network, and Center for Economic and Policy Research
3:45 – 4:00
Break
4:00 – 5:00
Closing
Sponsors:
350Seattle, SEIU 925, WA State Labor Council
Co-Sponsors:
American Federation of Teachers, Clean Greens Farm & Market, Earth Care not Warfare, Economics for Everyone, Faith Action Network, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, Greenpeace USA, Health Alliance International, LELO, Mazaska Talks, Olympia Movement for Justice and Peace (OMJP), PSARA, Puget Sound Sage, Real Change, Red May, Red Noses, Seattle Education Association, Sunrise Movement Seattle, Tools for Change, UAW 4121, US Women and Cuba Collaboration, WA Fair Trade Coalition
Community Partners:
Backbone Campaign, Community to Community Development, EarthCorps, Edible Seattle, Evergreen Center for Community Based Learning and Action, Green Plate Special, JUUstice Washington, NAMA-Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, National Family Farm Coalition, Northwest Harvest, Seattle CISPES, Social Justice Fund, UW Anthropology, UW Geography, UW Nutritional Sciences Program, UW School of Social Work, Village Volunteers
Presented by Town Hall Seattle, Community Alliance for Global Justice, & UFCW 21.
