Racial Justice Conference Uplifts Importance of Local Organizing and Coalition Building

“Don’t anticipatorily comply!” This was the advice Kim Anderson gave to the thousands of attendees of the Facing Race conference during the opening plenary on November 20 in St. Louis, MO.

Anderson is the executive director of the National Education Association (NEA), the largest labor union in the United States, which represents three million teachers and school personnel. Through this work, she has come to better understand that the fear surrounding the upcoming Trump administration and what it will unleash has trickled down even to young children.

“Believe Donald Trump when he says what he wants to do. His rhetoric is his policy.”

The day after the election, Anderson shared, students began expressing concerns to their teachers about whether or not their families would be separated by deportation or if they would have access to their gender-affirming care.

Indeed, among other things, Trump has expressed that he intends to roll back protections for transgender students and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Though she is fully prepared to push back against these efforts, Anderson said Trump’s words about how he plans should lead should not be taken lightly.

“Believe Donald Trump when he says what he wants to do. His rhetoric is his policy,” Anderson said in her remarks.

Still, even though combating the Trump administration’s policies will be an uphill battle, Anderson made clear that it is no time to give up. Rather, it is critical that advocates and organizations continue building coalitions and organizing on the local level.

This message echoed across the conference’s plenaries, breakout sessions, and keynote speech, delivered by MSNBC political analyst Joy-Ann Reid. The sentiment was clear: Trump will be president, so now is the time to strategize instead of retreat.

The Importance of Community

Sponsored by Race Forward, a nonprofit racial justice organization, Facing Race is the largest multiracial, multigenerational conference in the country. It brings together thousands of activists, nonprofit leaders, government workers, organizers, and others each year to strategize how to build power and uplift racial justice.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Our Power, Our Solutions”. Leading up to the conference, NPQ spoke with Leslie Grant-Spann, Race Forward’s senior director of conferences and convenings.

Grant-Spann said the conference organizers specifically chose this theme because they wanted to remind racial justice organizers about the inherent power they have regardless of who is in office.

“Despite the shifting conditions of the political landscape, the fact of the matter is that this movement has power,” Grant-Spann said.

Several themes from the plenary emerged across the dozens of sessions that centered the voices of reproductive justice advocates, family members of those killed by police, transgender people, people working to build solidarity with Palestinians, people working to combat antisemitism, and many others. But across these groups, one vital theme emerged: the importance of creating community, connections, and coalitions to advance racial justice work.

Anderson noted, for instance, that in cities like Chicago, the union works with local school officials to determine how to best protect and support students. The Chicago Board of Education recently reaffirmed its commitment to serving as a sanctuary school district that will protect students from attacks on their civil rights, especially regarding immigration.

Since Trump’s first presidency, hundreds of school districts across the country have declared themselves as sanctuary districts. City councils, like the Los Angeles City Council, have also passed measures to establish themselves as sanctuary cities, forbidding the use of city resources for immigration enforcement.

“State after state, we had down-ballot victories, and we should be curious about what organized those victories. How did those things happen?”

For Anderson, part of building coalitions is educating her members about what’s at stake. Anderson disputed the notion that working-class people—like many of those the NEA represents—are against progressive policies.

Though the complete data for this year’s election have not yet been compiled, Anderson noted that “in 2016, unionized workers were 4.4 percentage points more likely to support progressive candidates than nonunion workers. In 2018, that went up to 5.5 percent. In 2020, 7.7 percent. In 2022, that went up to 12.3 percent.”

She also pointed out that in three states—Nebraska, Kentucky, and Colorado, largely because of voter education efforts led by the NEA—voters defeated ballot measures that would have diverted taxpayer money from public schools to fund private schools.

The Power of Organizing

“Organizing works,” Anderson said.

There was no better place to amplify this message than in Missouri, home of the Ferguson Uprising in 2014, which erupted in response to the police killing of Michael Brown. Many of those involved in Facing Race first got their start in racial justice organizing during the Ferguson Uprising.

For instance, Maurice Mitchell was organizing in Ferguson 10 years ago. Now he is the national director of the Working Families Party (WFP). Speaking on the opening plenary with Anderson, Mitchell said it’s important to remember the local victories during this year’s election—and to build on them.

Mitchell said that during the election, the WFP endorsed over 700 candidates nationwide. In California, over 70 of these candidates won their elections. “In the state of Connecticut, we had an amazing set of victories. We flipped a number of state house races from red to blue with labor-backed candidates, teachers, labor organizers, and union workers,” Mitchell said.

He noted that in New York, the party helped flip seats in Congress and was able to help mobilize for the election of the most progressive city council to date in Portland, OR.

“State after state, we had down-ballot victories, and we should be curious about what organized those victories. How did those things happen?” Mitchell said.

With Trump set to take office in January with Republican control in the House, Senate, and Supreme Court, it is critical to understand what organizing tactics worked this election season and how to replicate them—even in places where victories may seem unlikely.

In some states across the country—like Florida, Texas, and Missouri—organizing strategies might look different than in other places. That is in part because in these places proposed policies under Project 2025 have started taking root. But it does not mean victories cannot occur in these places—in some ways, they offer the most concrete examples of how to organize under challenging situations.

Remembering the Ferguson Uprising

One panel featured Mike Brown’s parents, Cal Brown and Mike Brown, Sr.; and organizers, like Kayla Reed, the executive director of Action St. Louis, founded by activists who were sparked to action after Brown’s killing; and Annissa McCaskill, the executive director of Forward Through Ferguson, a nonprofit that works for racial equity in the region by uplifting the voices of those most directly impacted.

“We work in coalition to the point that we are tired of talking to each other—but we do the work,” said McCaskill about the coalitions that have been formed and sustained in the wake of Brown’s killing on August 9, 2014.

The events in Ferguson ignited a new civil rights movement and sent ripples across the country—and even the globe.

“People have died behind it, people are in cages behind it, people are in positions of power behind it—and all of that happened because Mike Brown was taken, and people said never again,” Reed said.

While the uprising inspired many across the country, local organizers have taken on the work to sustain the movement in St. Louis.

Mike Brown’s parents now lead a nonprofit organization, Chosen for Change, that provides holistic support to families who have lost loved ones in traumatic ways. Mike Brown, Sr. said doing this work has helped him fully appreciate his children who are still with him.

Reed noted that because of the efforts in the wake of Brown’s death, one of the county jails in St. Louis has since been shut down and is set to be demolished. As a native of St. Louis, she does not feel that the police presence is as heavy as it once was before the uprising.

Still, the work continues. Many activists are focused on protesting and raising awareness about the recent uptick in deaths inside county jails. For them, this work is an extension of the organizing that began 10 years ago, which started as a protest against one person’s death but became so much more. To them, this is a reminder of why local organizing and coalition building is so critical.

“We can talk about who’s going to be in the White House, but people will feel it in the streets of St. Louis. They will feel it on the ground in places like this,” Reed said.