Join smartMeme and 1,000+ social justice organizations in Detroit June 22-26th for The US Social Forum: The biggest, badest, boldest convergence of 2010!

SmartMeme’s Featured USSF Events! THURSDAY JUNE 24:

1. Workshop - Thur. 6/24 - 10am - 12noon, Cobo Hall rm DO-03D

Story-based Strategy: How Grassroots Organizers Can Win the Battle of the Story
2. Book Release Party - Thur. 6/24 - 6-8 pm, Majestic Cafe

RSVP on Facebook
Free food & cash bar!
Majestic Cafe 4120 Woodward Ave between Mack & Warren, Detroit 48201
SmartMeme is also a collaborator on the Echo-Justice Project and the Narrative Peoples Movement Assembly!

Join us online! Take a quick framing strategies survey and help shape this historic conversation!

Join us in Detroit! Media Justice Dreamz/Echo Justice: Building Movement through Building Meaning

Friday June 25 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Cobo Hall: D2-08
With: Center for Media Justice, smartMeme, Praxis Project & Progressive Communicators Network!
This PMA will elevate framing and story-based strategies as key methods to advance media justice and build social justice movements!
RSVP on eventbrite here!

MORE Great USSF Stuff From smartMeme Friends & Fam...
Full listing is up to date at www.smartmeme.org/blog through the USSF

WEDNESDAY JUNE 23

Movement Generation - Eco-Justice 101: Ecological Crises, Impacts on Communities of Color, and Strategies for the Future
10 AM - 12 PM
AFL-CIO Canopy
Communities of color stand to be first and worst impacted by the multiple ecological crises that are developing today. These crises: of water scarcity and pollution, climate change, waste and toxic pollution, food and agriculture, and the loss of biological and cultural diversity, are a result of the same systems that have driven exploitation and oppression in our communities. They demand the urgent attention of our leaders and organizers as we build our resistance and fight for a better tomorrow. This workshop, which will feature audiovisual presentation, small group discussion, and interactive exercises, will explore: 1. What are these developing crises? 2. How will they impact low-income communities of color in the US and globally? 3. What are examples of community resistance that we can learn from? and 4. How can understanding these struggles create opportunities to advance our work on other issues like housing, jobs, immigration, community development, education, etc?
Eco-Justicia 101: Crisis Ecologica, Efectos sobre las Comunidades de Color y Estrategias para el Futuro
This workshop is also offered in Spanish 1-3 PM
Cobo Hall: DO-02A

LIMITED TO 50 PEOPLE
DS4Si: Social Interventions: An Approach to Creating Social Change
1 PM - 3 PM
Woodward Academy: 1436
with the Design Studio 4 Social Intervention
Social interventions are creative and often public ways to create social change. In this interactive workshop we will engage participants in designing powerful, fun and creative social interventions through: reviewing five diverse social interventions, looking for themes, addressing the S’s of intervention design (scale, structure, systems, symbols, and sensation), discussing the importance of increasing interventionist approaches to change, and inviting participants to be a part of a larger conversation and practice of designing social interventions.

THURSDAY JUNE 24

Movement Generation - Eco-Justice 101: Ecological Crises, Impacts on Communities of Color, and Strategies for the Future
10 AM - 12 PM
WSU Cohn: 224
Communities of color stand to be first and worst impacted by the multiple ecological crises that are developing today. These crises: of water scarcity and pollution, climate change, waste and toxic pollution, food and agriculture, and the loss of biological and cultural diversity, are a result of the same systems that have driven exploitation and oppression in our communities...
Global Justice Ecology Project - Climate Connections: Building the Movement for Social Change
10 AM -12 PM
Woodward Academy: 1436
Co-hosted with: Movement Generation, Indigenous Environmental Network, Women of Color United and others. Climate Change is at once a social and environmental justice issue, an ecological issue, and an issue of economic and political domination. As such, it must be addressed through broad and visionary alliances. To successfully address the climate crisis, we must also identify and address the deep root causes that link it to the myriad other crises we face...
Ruckus Society & Training 4 Change - No More Rallies, No More Marches: Direct Action Strategies for Climate Justice & Community Resiliency
1 PM - 530 PM
Cobo Hall: DO-03B
Tired of seeing the same old mass demonstrations? So are we! This workshop will explore creative innovative action design, to help push past marches and rallies into direct actions that are strategic, effective, and fun!

FRIDAY JUNE 25

Peoples Movement Assembly - Ecological Justice
Co-Convened by: Movement Generation, Ruckus Society, Southwest Workers Union, EJCC, Just Transition Alliance, and many others...
1:00pm - 5:00pm
Cobo Hall: D3-28
This is a BIG PMA that bringing folks together to advance proposals from the grassroots for shared work on climate and ecological justice rooted in an understanding of the need to transform the global systems that determine the ways each of us gets to live, work, and play.
Art is Change: Art & Creative Practice for Cultural and Political Transformation
1 - 3 PM
Cobo Hall: O2-38
"Art Is Change: Art & Creative Practice for Cultural and Political Transformation" will be an interactive/experiential session that introduces the idea of cultural transformation as a framework for political and social justice work. Participants will explore and experiment with the impact of art and creative process, tell stories of the impact in their own work and challenge each other with learning edge questions that are on the cutting edge of cultural organizing including; the tension between cultural equity and cultural transformation and the challenges of embodying our cultural values.
New World from Below Book Party
7-9pm
Spirit of Hope Church - 1519 Martin Luther King Dr, Detroit 48208
Celebrate recent radical publishing with AK Press, PM Press, Autonomedia, Institute of Anarchist Studies, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Microcosm Publishing, Team Colors Collective, and others!

SATURDAY JUNE 26

MASS STREET ACTION for Clean Air, Good Jobs and Justice!
Rally at 9 am in front of Detroit Public Library, 5201 Woodward
Join the People of Detroit on Saturday, June 26 for a Rally, March & Mass Demonstration to End the World’s Biggest Waste Incinerator!

See You In DETROIT!!!!