Our world is facing an economic, ecological and social crisis of proportions perhaps never before seen in human history. The times demand that we build social movements strong enough to confront and overcome the systems of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy which have created this crisis.
The Vermont Workers Center believes that we in the Global North, and especially those of us organizing in majority-white communities like Vermont, have both an imperative and a responsibility to build strong social movements with an inclusive vision and a strong analysis of systems of oppression. The People’s University for Learning and Liberation (PULL) is our popular education and leadership development work. The learning spaces created by PULL will help our grassroots base understand those systems and how they are used to divide and weaken progressive movements. As we live through and experience PULL we will develop tools to build stronger, more inclusive and more connective social movements. As our friends at People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) in San Francisco put it (in a quotation we use in our leadership development work):
Throughout the Third World where social movements flourish, working class people, who have little formal education, study and debate theory with a prowess that would shame most college graduates in the United States. The challenges of this period demand that organizers develop the [intellectual] skills that are so often frowned upon.
Since 2007, the Workers’ Center has held an annual Solidarity School, a 3-day intensive leadership development program, and in the fall of 2008 and again in the summer of 2010 we worked with the Catalyst Project to hold workshops around the state on “Anti-Racism and Building a Social Justice Movement.” PULL continues this and expands on this work.
Connect with PULL on Facebook