The National Convergence for Democracy is a three-day gathering in Minneapolis, MN from Friday, August 21 to Sunday, August 23 designed to bring together community, grassroots, and frontline organizers and leaders from across the country who want to skill-share and coordinate the next iteration of democracy defense in the United States.

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CORE GOALS

  • Be prepared for authoritarian escalation around elections and other threats to civil society.

  • Document, share, and analyze learnings from both recent resistance to authoritarianism. Offer anti-authoritarian political education rooted in historic and global examples of successful mass resistance. 

  • Develop shared political frameworks and strategic orientation toward actions such as noncooperation and coordinated and decentralized rapid response. If the elections are stolen - we need to be ready to respond together.

  • Deepen practical skills in rapid mobilization, safety, legal strategy, communications, mutual aid, and security.

  • Provide a space for finding your people, building across differences and strengthening relationships of individuals and groups. 

  • Create structured space for grief processing, and rebuilding trust across networks strained by repression, burnout, and interpersonal rupture.

PROGRAM

Programming includes:

  • Plenaries and panels featuring movement leaders and frontline voices

  • Skill-building trainings in direct action, rapid response, legal strategy, communications, mutual aid organizing, and more

  • Open space and emergent strategy sessions where participants set the agenda

  • Regional meetups, caucuses, and strategy labs for constituency-based and place-based coordination

  • Healing, processing, and repair spaces to sustain our movement and tend to the people within it

  • Job-fair style tabling for organizations to connect with attendees

The convergence is organized around four tracks, so participants can go deep with their own communities while building across them: rapid response & mutual aid, legal advocacy, faith organizing, and labor, community organizing & mass mobilization. Each track will include dedicated sessions, networking, and strategy time tailored to that constituency's role in democracy defense. Attendees may choose to participate in sessions across multiple tracks. 

Learn more about the sessions being planned below!

  • Sessions include:

    • Noncooperation to Defend Elections and Defeat Authoritarianism | Offered by Freedom Trainers

    • Lessons from Occupied Cities and the P3 Research | Offered by D.C., Chicago, and Minneapolis Organizers

    • Community Strike Readiness | Offered by Grassroots Democracy & the Strike Ready Corps

    • We Will Win With Joy: Trans Narratives and the Anti-Democracy Movement | Offered by OutFront MN

    • Transformation & Mobilization: Values-Based Movement Building | Offered by Ayada Leads

    • Digital Security & Anti-Doxxing Clinics | Offered by Equality Labs

    • School Safety, Community Defense, and Educator Power in a Federal Enforcement Era | Offered by Education Minnesota

    • Start Now: Hyperlocal Organizing in Trump 2.0 | Offered by Free Radicals

    • Beyond Resistance: Building Black Governing Power | Offered by New Justice Project & the Southern Movement Committee

    • Communities Under Pressure Cannot Survive Isolation | Offered by Jewish Community Action & Council on American-Islamic Relations - MN

    • American Agitators Film Screening & Discussion | Offered by American Agitators and UFCW Local 663

    • Building a United Black Front: Organizing Across The Diaspora | Offered by New Justice Project & Reviving Sisterhood

    • Solidarity Wins! Organizing Across Race, Gender, and Region to Fight the Billionaires and Win Power | Offered by Grassroots Power Project

    • Toppling the Pillars: How to Recruit Defectors from the Authoritarian Coalition | Offered by The Horizons Project

    • We Keep Us Safe: How to Build a Marshal Team | Offered by the Union Peacekeepers

    • Corporate Campaigns & the Democracy Pledge | Offered by Tending the Soil & SEIU Local 26

    • Rooted & Rising: Rural Organizing Against Authoritarianism | Offered by Fire in the Village, Brainerd Indivisible, and Northern Neighbors

    • Messaging for Crisis Scenario Planning | Offered by Freedom Trainers

    • Accompaniment for Deep Electoral Organizing: The Voter Doula Workshop | Offered by Minnesota Freedom Fund

    • Democracy On the Block: Democracy Observer Training | Offered by MN Voice

    • Democracy On the Block: How to Host A Party That Builds Community Resilience and Defends Democracy | Offered by MN Voice

    • Arts in Action Story Circle | Offered by Fire in the Village & Local Artists

    • Never Waste a Crisis: Responding to Crisis and Emerging a Stronger, More Leaderful Organization | Offered by the Saint Paul Federation of Educators

    • And more!

  • Sessions include:

    • Building Rapid Response, Dispatch & Patrol Infrastructure | Offered by Minnesota Rapid Response Organizers

    • Community Defense Roles: Become a Patroller, Dispatcher, & Rapid Responser | Offered by Minnesota Rapid Response Organizers

    • We Care for Us: Organizing Mutual Aid Across Contexts | Offered by Grassroots & Institutional Mutual Aid Organizers

    • Trust and Resilience: Lessons from Somali Community ICE Resistance | Offered by the Somali American Partnership

    • Street Medic Basic Training | Offered by the MN 50501 Street Medic Team

  • Sessions include:

    • Using State & International Law to Protect 2SLGBTQIA+ Rights | Offered by Advocates for Human Rights, Gender Justice, and Groundwork Legal

    • Protecting Elections from Interference | Offered by ACLU of Minnesota, Groundwork Legal, and others

    • Civil Disobedience, Protestor Defense & First Amendment Strategies | Offered by ACLU of Minnesota, Climate Defense Project, and Mitchell-Hamline School of Law

    • Immigration Defense, Habeas Corpus, and Rapid Response Advocacy | Offered by the Minnesota Habeas Project, Advocates for Human Rights, and Twin Cities Habeas Collective

    • Building the Infrastructure of Legal Resistance | Offered by National Lawyers Guild - MN, Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB), the Legal Rights Center, and Eyes on ICE Legal Defense Fund

  • Sessions include:

    • Spiritually-Grounded Non-Cooperation 2.0 Training for Faith Actors | Offered by MARCH (Multifaith Antiracism, Change & Healing) and Singing Resistance

    • Sustaining the Struggle: Spiritual and Somatic Practices for Long-Term Resistance | Offered by MARCH

    • Ritual, Ceremony, and Sacred Public Witness | Offered by MARCH

    • Faith Presence at ICE Detention Centers: Accompaniment and Resistance | Offered by MARCH Groundwork Legal, and Haven Watch

    • Faith Communities Becoming Accomplices: A Case Study from Calvary Lutheran Church | Offered by MARCH and Calvary Lutheran Church

    • Spiritual, Somatic, and Creative Practice Open Space | Offered by MARCH

    • Solidarity with At-Risk Faith Communities: Practices, Pitfalls, and Possibilities |

    • Shabbat at the Convergence | Offered by Jewish Community Action

    • Sunday Morning Worship at the Convergence | Offered by Rev. Dr. Jia Starr Brown & MARCH

OUTCOMES

Stronger alignment around the strategic use of coordinated mass non-compliance, including corporate actions, strikes, shutdowns, and collective refusal for the purpose of winning concrete victories and stopping the rise of authoritarianism.

Shared stories and lived experiences from Minnesota’s resistance and community defense response. A grounded analysis of what worked, what was a struggle, and what must evolve in future moments of escalation.

Expanded tactical capacity in rapid mobilization, patrols, mutual aid, safety culture, legal strategy, communications, digital tools, and movement infrastructure. Exchanged practical skills, tactical innovations, songs, and hard-earned lessons across regions and movements. 

Deeper political clarity rooted in historic and global examples of successful resistance to authoritarianism.

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INVESTMENT

Sponsor

This work requires allies to support the work of organizers, activists, faith leaders, and neighbors coming together. To join our work, consider sponsoring the National Convergence for Democracy! Sponsors receive event passes, are offered space to table in the exhibitor area, and more.

SPONSOR NCD

Donate

To make this ambitious and necessary convening happen we estimate a budget of $1,000,000. That will fund project management, venue(s), audio/visual, security, travel scholarships for people with roles, facilitator honoraria, interpretation and accessibility, food, legal, and documentation, and materials.

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  • “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.”

    — Antonio Gramsci