Preparing the Ground For Cadre Organizations, with Milena Velis and Jayanni Webster of LeftRoots

Hegemonicon - An Investigation Into the Workings of Power

This episode wraps up the current season of Hegemonicon with one more look at "What We're Building." William sits down with Milena Velis and Jayanni Webster, who were both deeply engaged with LeftRoots, an organization that operated for about 10 years before intentionally sunsetting at the end of 2023.

LeftRoots's major mission was training and preparing people to become cadre. The organization's sunset has now made way for one, maybe two, successor organizations that intend to be disciplined networks of cadre moving a coherent strategy from various corners of the US institutional landscape.

Terms like "cadre" might be initially confusing to some listeners. This episode explains how LeftRoots understood the nature and importance of cadre, and what it did in its 10 years of work. Milena Velis is the former cadre training director of LeftRoots, and a communicator and media maker from Philadelphia. Jayanni Webster is a labor and community organizer from Memphis, Tennessee, and is now a founding member of North Star, one of the cadre organizations growing out of the LeftRoots process. Milena is a member of the Convergence Editorial Board, and Jayanni worked on the weekly live show Frontline Dispatches that was produced under our previous name, Organizing Upgrade.

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