Please register in advance to attend!
June 28 – July 19
Sundays, 2:00 pm
Indianapolis Liberation Center
Facilitators:
Lindsey Holtgrave, Riley Park, Rissa Wilson, Derek Ford, and Jack Gill
About the course
Winning a socialist revolution in the U.S. requires attending to the specific dynamics of this country, for which anti-communism and white chauvinism have served as unofficial religions for over a century. Throughout this four-part course, we’ll learn theories and engage in examples of popularizing socialism so we can win over larger and larger segments of the population to the necessity and reality of the radical reconstruction of society. Socialist consciousness doesn’t grow spontaneously. The only way it can grow is through the purposeful efforts of organizers engaged in a variety of campaigns on the neighborhood, local, state, national, and international level.
Although there is nothing natural about teaching, after our first set of readings you’ll see that you’re already an educator—or at least that you already possess some characteristics of an educator. By focusing on the theory and practice of revolutionary education, we can train a new cohort of organizers to not only promote socialist consciousness but be better equipped to enter into any arena of struggle.
In this course, we’ll familiarize ourselves with (and practice) different educational modes and discuss and experience their relationship to liberation. Along the way, we’ll gain a common vocabulary to better reflect on, discuss, and refine our educational practices (whether they be in the streets, schools, prisons, or on the job and whether they take the form of lecturing or leading small-group discussions).
Required text
- Nino Brown (ed.), Revolutionary Education: Theory and Practice for Socialist Organizers, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Liberation Media, 2022).
This series, like all reading groups at the Indy Liberation Store, is free and open to the public, although we do require some kind of donation or purchase from the Store to keep paying the rent. While pre-reading is encouraged, it is not required.
Reading schedule
Session 1: Sun. June 28 (intro)
Session 2: Sun. July 5: ch. 1, 2, and 3
Session 3: Sun. July 12: ch. 5, 6, 8 (chapter 4 is optional)
Session 4: Sun. July 19: ch. 7, 9, appendices A and B
About the facilitators
Lindsey Holtgrave
Lindsey is an activist, organizer, and revolutionary whose heart belongs to her community. She believes that a better world is possible, and through her work in Indianapolis she hopes to inspire others to agree.
Riley Park
Riley Park is an organizer, writer, and a third year doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Indianapolis. They co-edited Socialist Education in Korea: Selected Works of Kim Il Sung (Iskra: 2023). They have been a part of the Korean national liberation movement and a member of Party for Socialism and Liberation since 2019. They have volunteered with the Indianapolis Liberation Center since it opened in 2021.
Rissa Wilson
Rissa Wilson is a social worker, organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and volunteer and store manager for the Indianapolis Liberation Center. Rissa currently is one of the lead organizers for Indianapolis Hope Packages and has spent the last two years organizing in Indy. Rissa enjoys reading, writing, spending time with her family and bringing the community closer in struggle and solidarity.
Featured image: The cover of Revolutionary education. Credit: Liberation News.