National Gathering To Protect US Democracy in MN

FEATURING DANIEL HUNTER - A major 3-day gathering from August 21 through 23 in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, aims to rally and train activists in defending what’s left of US democracy, and engaging in mass-noncompliance with rising authoritarianism. The National Convergence for Democracy will feature plenaries and panels and networking opportunities for community organizers to share resources. It will also feature practical trainings on election defense, combating ICE terror and more, by a group called Freedom Trainers.

Daniel Hunter is the Director of Freedom Trainers, a group that's trained across the country about Trump's authoritarian threat and how to stop it. His article "10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won" went viral right after the Trump election. He's been a trainer and educator in climate and social justice spaces for decades. Daniel spoke with Sonali Kolhatkar about the upcoming National Convergence for Democracy and more.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: First, let's talk about the National Convergence before we get a little bit more focused on what Freedom Trainers itself does. So this is a gathering taking place at the end of this week. It's one of those things where we're covering it at a time where if people haven't already made travel plans, likely they won't make it. But I'm really interested in finding out what the point of this convergence is at a time when it seems like we need such convergences taking place in every city across the country. What's scheduled to happen? 

Daniel Hunter: Well, let me say this. So one of the places where this convergence emerged out of is, of course, Minneapolis, which became a hub of resistance. But it became a hub of resistance after many places tried different experiments. In Chicago against ICE, against [Greg] Bovino in Charlotte, in LA, DC. 

And so what they realized is there's a bunch of people who have learned a tremendous amount about dealing with ICE in their local neighborhoods at local levels, and how do we move this from just being different locations to exactly what you're saying, which is let's be more collective and share those across each other from different places. 

So people will be coming from all over the country to swap notes, share how are we assessing this moment, what are the things that we're doing to resist and go forward. And so it'll be a chance for swapping, sharing, training, skilling each other up in, as you say, both around ICE, around election defense, around the whole thread of authoritarian threat that we're currently experiencing. So it's a way to move from local fights to national, which is the trajectory that we're on right now.