The conference is bringing a diverse group of scholars and organizers from across North America to discuss how the history of social movements in Canada and the United States can broaden our vision of the challenges facing today’s struggles, including the globalization of social justice issues, the ongoing retrogressive clawback of twentieth-century social movements’ policy achievements, and a hostile political climate. Our program includes panels on issues vital to organizing today, including ones on building a democratic culture, the necessity and challenges of coalition building, the impact of movements on electoral politics, labour and social justice, organizing poor people’s movements, and the struggles and balance between rights-based reform and social transformation, among many others.

We are organizing this conference in honor of Jack O’Dell, a social justice activist now living in Vancouver. O’Dell worked closely with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse Jackson, and has played an important organizing role at different periods in the labor, civil rights and peace and justice movements from the 1940s to the present. Inspired by O’Dell’s organizing experience and vision, the conference is focusing on the three processes we have identified as essential to the often unprecedented successes of twentieth-century movements: “organizing change,” “building internationalism,” and “linking struggles.”

For registration information, the conference program, and a biographical sketch of Jack O’Dell, please visit our website (web address follows).