Founded in 2017, the People’s Think Tank is a network of thought leaders from over forty community, parent and youth organizing groups, national alliances, and allied organizations committed to building knowledge to support movements for racial equity, educational and social justice, and community liberation.
The People’s Think Tank supports, strengthens, and expands the movement for educational justice by creating a space led by community organizers and the parents, young people and communities with whom they work, lifting up stories and strategies, building new knowledge and organizing models to create solidarity, dismantle anti-Black racism and systemic oppression in all its intersectional forms, developing visions for equitable, humane and liberatory education connected to healthy and vibrant communities, and fostering collective love, sovereignty, healing and well-being.
In the People’s Think Tank, movement organizers and leaders build authentic relationships, share lived experience and organizing lessons, hold deep and sometimes difficult conversations, conduct participatory action-oriented research, and rejuvenate mind, body, and soul for the struggles ahead towards educational justice and community liberation.
Using participatory research approaches, the People’s Think Tank has produced two books – Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline and Lift Us Up! Don’t Push Us Out: Voices from the Front Lines of the Educational Justice Movement to lift up the stories and strategies of community organizers, parents and youth leaders, and allies, fighting to dismantle white supremacy and all intersectional forms of oppression and work towards educational justice and community liberation. The think tank has also produced a series of blogs and compiled resources to support movement organizers and leaders and engage multiple stakeholders in advocacy for transformational change.
The People’s Think Tank is currently focused on participatory action research on intersectional organizing and solidarity building.
Meet the PTT Steering Committee
- Denisha “Coco” Bland, Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS)
- Geoffrey Winder, Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ)
- Ignacia Rodriguez-Kmec, National Immigration Law Center (NILC)
- Letha Muhammad, Educational Justice Alliance (EJA)
- LuzMarina Serrano, Genders and Sexualities Alliance Network (GSA Network)
- Patrice Hill, Sacramento Area Youth Speaks (SAYS)
- Zakiya Sankara-Jabar, Racial Justice NOW! (RJN)
- Mark Warren, University of Massachusetts-Boston
- Vajra Watson, California State University Sacramento