Heather Booth podcasts the need to organize to bring about change based on a lifetime of activism for women's rights and social justice.
Heather is an American civil rights activist, feminist, and political strategist who has been involved in activism for progressive causes. During her student years, she was active in both the civil rights movement and feminist causes. Since then she has had a career involving feminism, community organization, and progressive politics. - Wikipedia
- Participated in the civil rights movement and traveling to Mississippi for Freedom Summer
- Began the first women’s liberation movement organization on a school campus and spearheaded JANE, an abortion counseling service, risking criminal charges in the days before Roe v. Wade
- Founded the Midwest Academy to train leaders of social change organizations
- Helped increase African American turnout in the 2000 election as executive director of the NAACP National Voter Fund - JWA
STRATEGY FOR ORGANIZERS
We Need to Show Up!
"Booth emphasizes the four m’s: members, message, money, and movement... “The protest that’s essential is not enough,” she said. “What we need to do is build the power that is converted to political power that elects those officials” at the state and federal levels who will fight to protect abortion rights, voting rights, and more." - New Republic
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court Race Is the Next Abortion-Rights Test
Voters will choose between Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal former prosecutor who supports abortion rights, and former State Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, who has run on an anti-abortion platform and advised Republicans during their efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state... The race could not only decide whether the ban is lifted, but whether the state constitutionally protects abortion.
Protasiewicz, a former prosecutor, has served as a judge for ten years. She was first elected to the Milwaukee County bench in 2013 and oversees cases in family court.“ What I have told people regarding the 1849 ban: I have been very, very clear that my values are that women have the right to choose.” - The Cut
Heather Booth
Heather Booth was a student at the University of Chicago when a friend approached her in 1965 needing help getting an abortion, Rainey Horwitz wrote "The Jane Collective". After helping her friend find a doctor willing to take the risk of performing the procedure, Booth was inundated with requests from other women needing help. By the late 1960s, "the Jane Collective provided health care, counseling, and abortion services to thousands of women in Chicago" with the help of volunteers. Roughly six months after the women were arrested, on Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in the United States with their decision in Roe v. Wade. - NPR
Resources
Heather shares what it’s been like to be a woman leader in the movement and her advice for those who want to make a difference today. (Democracy In Color)
Heather Booth - @hboothgo
Heather Booth - Changing the World - Documentary
The Janes - Documentary
Call Jane - Feature Film
Heather Booth & Fannie Lou Hamer 1964 - Photo
MidWest Academy
Heather Booth took funds from a settlement she won from a labor organizing dispute in 1973, to start the Midwest Academy. It is a training institute for progressive community organizers and the organizations they worked for to teach strategy, tactics and movement building. It has trained over twenty-five thousand grassroots activists from hundreds of organizations and coalitions. The Midwest Academy teaches an organizing philosophy, methods and skills that enable ordinary people to actively participate in the democratic process.
The Midwest Academy is celebrating its 50th anniversary on May 17, 2023 in Washington, DC. Support the celebration.
TakeAway: Learn how to organize to build the political power that elects officials who write the laws we have to live by.
Deepak
DemLabs
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Digital Politics Podcast
DigitalPoliticsPodcast is a non-partisan podcast and the newsletter are projects of the E-Voter Institute, co-founded by Karen Jagoda in 1998 about the use of digital and traditional tools for political and advocacy campaigns. The audience includes digital and traditional political and advocacy strategists, solution providers to political and advocacy campaigns, pollsters, association leaders, activists, fundraisers, media planners, media buyers, media providers, elected officials, staffers, candidates, digital entrepreneurs, journalists, academics and investors.
DemLabs is collaborating with E-Voter Institute to highlight grassroots campaign innovations. Find out more about how to be featured in a future podcast here.
Listen to on the Digital Politics Podcast with Karen Jagoda
Postcarding and Other Political Grassroots Innovations with Andrea Miller Center for Common Ground
Democracy Thrives When We Have Shared Facts with Nicole Bateman USAFacts
The Power of Women Voters with Taylor Salditch Supermajority
Training Winning Candidates with Patti Russo The Campaign School at Yale Universit
Empowering Campaign Volunteers to Build Relationships with Jono Kupferberg HubDialer
Editorial Cartoons Political Humor and Influencing Public Opinion with Daryl Cagle