US Social Forum June 27, 2007

The US Social Forum is to be a congress of grassroots organizers, activists, and other entities wishing to bring an end to "the Empire".

Quote: Some of us got an idea of the impact such an alliance could have 20 years ago during the period from 1983 to 1989. Because of the 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a grassroots-based National Rainbow Coalition began to emerge. This African-American-based and African-American-led formation brought together leaders and groups from a mix of constituencies and movements: Latinos, labor, farmers, women, lesbian and gay people, peace activists, community groups and more. Between 1986 and 1988, it began to take root via local and state coalitions, developing as a progressive alternative to two-party politics-as-usual. It consciously linked activists operating in the Democratic Party with activists building independent organizational forms and parties, united behind a consistently progressive political program.

This type of a Rainbow Coalition movement no longer exists, but there is an important initiative underway that has the potential to advance a different kind of unity- and alliance-building process across lines of race, culture, issue and geographic region - a process that we desperately need: the United States Social Forum, happening in Atlanta, Georgia, June 27th to July 1st.

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World Social Forum Origins

It is significant that the US Social Forum is emerging out of many years of World Social Forums that have been happening in countries of the Global South. Originally begun in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001, the first World Social Forum (WSF) was organized as an alternative to the world ruling elite's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The second and third WSFs were held in Porto Alegre; the fourth one in Mumbai, India, and the fifth one back in Porto Alegre. Beginning with 12,000 people in 2001, it grew to 155,000 registered participants in 2005.

Official Website: http://www.ussf2007.org/