The People's Convergence Conference

Start: Friday, September 8, 2017 1:30 PM

Host Contact Info: info@convergence2017.org

The People’s Convergence Conference

Featuring "Draft Bernie Town Hall" with Dr. Cornel West & Kshama Sawant

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Progressives from around the country will gather in the nation’s capital Sept. 8-10 for The People’s Convergence Conference to discuss the central questions facing our movement: What will it take to defeat the right wing and build a powerful left alternative? Should progressives continue the fight to reform the Democratic Party or should we launch a new people’s party, independent of corporate money and influence?

The event is being hosted by a group of grassroots organizations: Draft Bernie for a People’s Party (DB), the Progressive Independent Party (PIP), and Socialist Alternative (SA). The feature event will be the Draft Bernie Town Hall, to which leading intellectual, author and activist Dr. Cornel West and Draft Bernie founder Nick Brana invited Sen. Sanders on Democracy Now! in April. The Town Hall will feature Dr. West and socialist Seattle City Councilwoman and activist Kshama Sawant.

The sponsoring organizations represent many thousands of working people who supported Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign; men and women of all races and from every state who gave countless hours and reached deep to donate what they could spare to his campaign. Now they are united in asking Sen. Sanders to join them in conversation about the next steps for our movement at the Town Hall.

The conference will comprise three days of workshops, panels, and plenaries and will bring together a mix of voices from the worlds of activism, labor, academia, independent political parties and independent media.

Draft Bernie for a People’s Party will also use this event to deliver over 50,000 petition signatures to Sanders’ Senate office. The petition calls on Sen. Sanders to continue the revolution he started during his 2016 presidential run by launching a major new party that can fight to win the policies Sanders campaigned for, like Medicare for All and free college education. The petition delivery begins with a rally at 1:30 pm on the National Mall, on the corner of 7th St and Madison Dr. NW. Jimmy Dore, Kshama Sawant and Tim Black will join us. At 2:30 pm we head to the Bernie's office.

The sponsoring organizations will host sister gatherings across the country where thousands more can view the conference and Town Hall by livestream. Sister gatherings will deliberate the direction of the progressive movement on a local level.

“This conference is an important next step in bringing together working people, youth, people of color, activists and progressive leaders to prepare the ground for a powerful challenge to both establishment parties, Republican and Democratic alike, as we move forward,” said Nick Brana (DB), Araquel Bloss (PIP), and Calvin Priest (SA) in a joint statement by the heads of the three sponsoring organizations.

One year ago Berniecrats gathered at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where we saw the Democratic nomination stolen from Sen. Bernie Sanders, which helped set the stage for the election of Donald Trump. The DNC inspired the creation of Draft Bernie and led to the rapid growth of left organizations like PIP and SA.

The three hosting organizations support the platform of Bernie 2016, including Medicare for All, $15 minimum wage, getting big money out of politics, an end to the mass incarceration state, racial justice, free public college tuition, manufacturing development and taxing Wall Street and the billionaire class.

We look forward to seeing you in Washington, D.C. between Sept 8-10, 2017.

Please email info@Convergence2017.org for an application for financial hardship tickets.