Episode 15: Lauren Jacobs

In this fifteenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest is Lauren Jacobs.  Lauren is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Working Families – a national network of regional power-building organizations.  Lauren and I have been friends for over 15 years…I remember when she was a union organizer in Boston. I have always loved the way Lauren combines things: race and class…theory and practice.  That nuanced and rooted way of engaging the world is key at building real power to transform the world. 

We had a wide-ranging conversation on a variety of topics including:

Working with unreliable partners in the united front against authoritarianismThe importance of working with everyday people to building the capacity to see themselves as social change agentsThe intertwined nature of race and class

For more background on Lauren Jacobs and her work, here are links:

https://www.forworkingfamilies.org/

https://forgeorganizing.org/article/building-united-front-against-authoritarianism

https://forgeorganizing.org/article/organizing-economy-we-want

And during the podcast, Lauren mentioned an important article by Stuart Hall, “Gramsci and Us”:

http://www.banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/87_06_16.pdf