Rupa & the April Fishes perform their song “Growing Upward.”
This performance took place at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Rupa & the April Fishes create a “powerfully evocative” (LA times) sound that pulsates with the pluralism of US culture, celebrating the art of resistance through a wide musical palette that pulls from over a decade of playing street parties, festivals and symphonic concerts through 29 countries with songs in 5 languages. Under the direction of composer, front-woman, activist and physician Rupa, the band creates a live experience which is a manifestation of a world beyond nations, where the heart of humanity beats louder than anything that divides us.
The band consists of drummer Aaron Kierbel, cellist Misha Khalikulov, trumpeter Mario Alberto Silva, electronics artist/duduk player JHNO, bassist Daniel Fabricant, violinist Matt Szemela and guitarist/vocalist Rupa Marya.
We humans tend to look mostly around, sometimes up, and occasionally down, but even then, only at the surface of things. It turns out, however, that all of life on Earth actually depends on the extraordinarily dynamic life hidden beneath our feet, in the incredibly complex interrelationships of plants, bacteria, fungi, insects and minerals that make our continued existence above ground possible. In this session three of the world’s leading specialists on different aspects of those underground ecosystems share their cutting-edge research.
With: Suzanne Simard, Ph.D., Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, one of the planet’s leading experts on the synergies and complexities of forests, and a highly influential, world-renowned pathfinder on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence, and author of the current best-selling Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest; Anne Biklé and David R. Montgomery, a wife and husband team of scientific researchers whose groundbreaking work on the microbial life of soil has revealed its crucial importance to human wellbeing and survival. Dave, a professor of Geomorphology, is the author of the seminal Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, and Anne, a biologist and science communicator, co-authored The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health. Their latest collaboration, What Your Food Ate, to be published spring 2022, tells the sobering and inspiring story of how agriculture can help restore health to the land—and ourselves. Moderated by Bioneers’ Restorative Food Systems Director Arty Mangan.
This discussion took place at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Panelists
Suzanne Simard
Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, one of the planet’s leading experts on the synergies and complexities of forests and the development of sustainable forest stewardship practices, Suzanne Simard is a world-renowned pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence whose work has influenced several major filmmakers and novelists. She is the author of the currently best-selling Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.
Anne Biklé is a biologist, avid gardener, and co-author, along with her husband, David Montgomery, of The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health. Biklé is among the planet’s leading experts on the microbial life of soil and its crucial importance to human wellbeing and survival.
David Montgomery is a professor of Geomorphology and, along with his wife and collaborator Anne Biklé, co-author of The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Healtha landmark exploration the microbiome. Montgomery’s research looks at the process shaping Earth’s surface and how they affect ecological systems—and human societies. He has studied everything from the ways that landslides and glaciers influence the height of mountain ranges, to the way that soils have shaped human civilizations both now and in the past. He is an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and has received many awards throughout his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the Vega Medal. In addition to The Hidden Half of Nature, Montgomery is the author of the seminal Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations and Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back To Life.
Arty Mangan, Bioneers’ Restorative Food Systems Director, joined Bioneers in 1998 as Project Manager for the Restorative Development Initiative. A former board president of the Ecological Farming Association and member of the Santa Cruz GE Subcommittee that banned GE crops, Arty has worked with farmers and agriculture since 1978, first as a partner in Live Juice and later with Odwalla, where he was in charge of fruit sourcing.
Alongside Indigenous and frontline communities, young people have been at the forefront of the global climate fight. In this talk, Bill McKibben explains why older activists not only need to have their backs, but how we can harness the power of the fastest-growing population on earth—people over the age of 60—and move them towards progressive political involvement, foster intergenerational collaboration, and deepen the fight for a fairer, more stable planet.
This talk was delivered at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Bill McKibben, one of the most important thinkers on environmental issues and climate activists of our era, is a contributing writer to The New Yorker, a founder of the remarkable influential grassroots climate campaign 350.org and the Schumann Distinguished Professor in Residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. A recipient of the Right Livelihood Prize (sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel’) in 2014, and the Gandhi Peace Award, he has written over a dozen books about the environment, including his first, the seminal, groundbreaking text, The End of Nature, published 30 years ago; and his most recent, Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
In his New York Times best-selling book Falter (Henry Holt and Company, 2019) Bill McKibben warns us that climate change is unraveling this very human game. Our rapid degradation of the environment is moving faster than ever as humans have used more resources in the last 35 years than in all of human history before. Read an excerpt from Falter.
In her keynote address to the 2018 Bioneers conference, May Boeve shares her eagle’s-eye perspectives on the current state of the climate struggle. She illustrates 350.org’s learnings and strategies moving forward, including ways of learning about and incorporating justice and equity.
The way in which we diagnose problems in our bodies, in society and in our ecosystems is hampered by legacies of overly reductionist thinking, racist world-views and misguided desires to subdue nature, all conceived in a time of colonial conquest. These continue to persist, to our great detriment. What results is an inability to see how “whole systems” interact and how to effectively address the challenges we face, from pandemics to climate change, which are systems-level derangements.
Physician, musician, activist and writer Rupa Marya describes what “Deep Medicine” is and how the new level of diagnosis it offers can address the suffering of our planet, our societies and our own bodies. Drawing from insights in science, medicine, ecology, and story detailed in the book she co-authored with Raj Patel—Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice—Dr. Marya outlines why it is time for us all to join the Care Revolution.
Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and Faculty Director of the Do No Harm Coalition, Dr. Rupa Marya is one of the nation’s leading figures working at the intersection of medicine and social justice (including in investigating the health effects of police violence on communities and helping set up a free clinic under Lakota leadership at Standing Rock). She is also singer and musician who leads the internationally touring band Rupa and the April Fishes and the co-author (with Raj Patel) of the brand new book: Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice.
“You are about to read a collection of thoughtful essays on medicine and health—not just personal health but planetary health, and not just medicine in the ordinary sense but medicine as an enterprise that encompasses the totality of human experience.” – Andrew Weil M.D.
Ecological medicine is an idea whose time has come. This free ebook is an anthology of visionary voices surveying the principles and practices of this critical shift in paradigms, practices and societal design.
In this podcast, Dr. Rupa Marya describes how “social medicine” works to dismantle harmful social structures that directly lead to poor health outcomes, and building new structures that promote health and healing.
Read an excerpt from Ecological Medicine, Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves, a collection of writings from the world’s leading health visionaries, showing how human health is inescapably dependent on the health of our environment.
In a world wracked by income inequality, social divisions, and ecological destruction, can we build an alternative economics based on mutual cooperation and respect for our environmental commons? Among the nation’s most influential progressive thought leaders, activists and scholars, Manuel Pastor taps his new book, written with his long-time colleague Chris Benner, to propose that drawing on our instincts for connection and community can actually help create a more robust, sustainable, and equitable economy. But while most of us would benefit from centering mutuality and equity, some people do benefit from the current stark inequalities. As a result, seizing this moment for change will require brave conversations about racism and social fragmentation, a deep commitment to intersectional social movements, and a clear strategic vision for building people power.
This talk was delivered at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Manuel Pastor, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at USC and Director of its Equity Research Institute, has long been one of the most important scholars and activists working on the economic, environmental and social conditions facing low-income urban communities and the social movements seeking to change those realities. He has held many prominent academic posts, won countless prestigious awards and fellowships for his activism and scholarship, and is the author and co-author of many important, highly influential tomes, including most recently, State of Resistance: What California’s Dizzying Descent and Remarkable Resurgence Means for America’s Future (2018) and the just-about-to-be-released Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter.
This Bioneers Reader is a collection of pieces presenting wisdom from leading figures in progressive economic thought and action, all dealing with strategies to radically restructure our ever more inequitable, racist and environmentally devastating economic system.
How do we change the story of corrosive racial inequity? First, we have to understand the stories we tell ourselves. In this podcast, racial justice innovators john a. powell and Heather McGhee show how empathy, honesty and the recognition of our common humanity can change the story to bridge the racial divides tearing humanity and the Earth apart.
A special performance of “Waking Time” by musical duo MaMuse.
This performance took place at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
MaMuse, a musical duo (Sarah Nutting and Karisha Longaker) fed by folk and gospel traditions that has been together 13 years and produced five albums, uses a wide variety of acoustic instruments (upright bass, guitar, mandolins, ukulele, and flutes) with the goal of creating uplifting music that opens hearts, nurtures a love of life and “inspires the world into thriving.”
For millennia Indigenous communities have been guardians of their environments, protecting flora and fauna, using their traditional knowledge and wisdom passed down over generations to live in balance within their ecosystems. Today Indigenous peoples safeguard 80% of the biodiversity left in the world, and protecting those lands and waters is crucial to mitigating the climate crisis, because those biodiverse areas are among the planet’s major carbon sinks. Indigenous peoples are the ancestral owners of nearly half of the intact forest left across the entire Amazon Basin.
Nemonte Nenquimo, a leader from the Waorani community in Ecuador and a founding member of Indigenous-led nonprofit organization Ceibo Alliance and its partner, Amazon Frontlines, discusses why respecting Indigenous people’s internationally recognized rights to decide the future of their territories, cultures and lives is critically urgent for the protection of our world’s most important rainforest, our climate, and life on our planet.
This talk was delivered at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Image courtesy of Amazon Frontlines
Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous activist from the Ecuadorian Amazon, first female president of her tribe (the Waorani of Pastaza Province) and co-founder of the Indigenous-led Ceibo Alliance and its sister organization Amazon Frontlines, was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people on Earth in 2020 (the only Indigenous woman on the list) and won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize among other major awards, for her struggles against the ravages of oil drilling in her people’s ancestral lands.
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples have protected their sacred ancestral territories in the Amazon. In this keynote address to the 2019 Bioneers Conference, Leila Salazar López, Executive Director of Amazon Watch, urges us to stand with them to protect and restore the bio-cultural integrity of the Amazon, because our collective future depends on it.
In response to catastrophic assaults on their lands and cultures by corporate industrial civilization, the First Peoples of the Amazon have formed unprecedented alliances to protect lands and peoples. In this address to the 2018 Bioneers Conference, four extraordinary Indigenous leaders offer guiding wisdom from their elders to show what’s at stake for their rainforest territories, what it means to the future of our planet, the amazing successes that Ceibo Alliance has found in their efforts to defend their land, and what we can all do as allies to protect the Amazon, its First Peoples and life on Earth.
The Brower Youth Awards, named after the late, legendary environmental giant, David Brower, are one of the most prestigious prizes for youth activists, and we at Bioneers are delighted to be able to highlight the work of this year’s cohort of winners, an exceptional array of young mobilizers, organizers and paradigm-shifting leaders, who discuss their activist trajectories, the challenges they face, and their aspirations for the future.
Hosted/moderated by: Mackenzie Feldman, founder/Executive Director, Herbicide Free Campus. With: Sonja Michaluk, 18-year old NJ-based young scientist and citizen science activist, founder of the Conservation Communities Initiative, which encourages people to monitor and protect their local aquatic habitats; Peter Pham, 22, San Jose, CA-based environmental and transit justice activist with Turnout4Transit; David Baldwin, 18, Fort Lauderdale-based invasive plant researcher and activist with Everglades Restoration Ambassadors; Artemisio Romero y Carver, an 18-year old, Santa-Fe, NM-based artist, poet and organizer, co-founder of Youth United for Climate Crisis Action (YUCCA) (who was also Santa Fe’s 2020 Youth Poet Laureate!).
This discussion took place at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Panelists
Mackenzie Feldman
Mackenzie Feldman is the founder and Executive Director of Herbicide-Free Campus, an organization that works with students and groundskeepers around the country to advocate for an end to the spraying of synthetic herbicides at schools and a transition to organic land management. Her campaign resulted in the entire University of California system going glyphosate-free, and Mackenzie worked with a coalition to get herbicides banned from every public school in the state of Hawaii. Mackenzie is also a Food Research Fellow for Data For Progress and was a winner of the prestigious Brower Youth Award in 2019 for her work with Herbicide-Free Campus.
David Baldwin
David Baldwin, a Fort Lauderdale, FL-based 18-year old, who has done research alongside members of the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience and interned in a biogeochemistry lab at Florida Atlantic University, has been doing groundbreaking work on finding innovative land-management solutions to invasive weeds in his region. A member (since he was 14) of Everglades Restoration Ambassadors, a nonprofit that removes nonnative plants, he educates elementary school students about nonnative species using educational modules he developed. Baldwin was also just recently announced as a 2021 Brower Youth Award winner.
Sonja Michaluk
Sonja Michaluk, a Princeton, NJ-based 18-year old young scientist and citizen science activist who participated in her first freshwater bio-assessment as an eager six-year-old, founded the Conservation Communities Initiative, which encourages people to monitor and protect their local aquatic habitats and advocate for data-driven environmental decision making. The initiative runs a microbiology and genetics lab that facilitates use of a genetics-based bio-assessment method that Michaluk developed, which can identify the presence of threatened, endangered, and nonnative species from trace water samples. Michaluk has recently helped secure several big wins for aquatic environments, including the modification of a natural gas pipeline to protect ecologically critical land in Central New Jersey.
Peter Pham
Peter Pham, a San Jose, CA-based 22-year old environmental and transit justice activist with Turnout4Transit, a coalition of environmental advocacy groups, labor unions, and social justice organizations, has been fighting for better public transit throughout the San Jose metropolitan region and beyond with the goals of slashing regional emissions, decreasing traffic congestion, and increasing local residents access to opportunities. This past year Pham and his colleagues helped pass a ballot measure to generate $100 million for rail services in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, and he is a just recently announced 2021 Brower Youth Award winner.
Artemisio Romero y Carver
Artemisio Romero y Carver is an 18-year old, Santa-Fe, NM-based artist, poet and organizer who helped found Youth United for Climate Crisis Action (YUCCA), a youth-led nonprofit working to hold elected officials accountable for the health of the planet, future generations, and BIPOC communities by leading protests, lobbying for federal and state legislation, endorsing candidates, and educating voters. Romero y Carver, currently a steering committee member and spokesperson for YUCCA, served as its Policy Director during New Mexico’s 2021 legislative session during which three of the organization’s priority bills were passed, and was also Santa Fe’s 2020 Youth Poet Laureate.
Trauma has perhaps never been more widely prevalent than it is now, nor more varied in its causes: personal stress, familial history, racial discrimination, poverty, oppression, climate disaster, etc. These times are really stretching our capacity to endure, so they require ever more effective healing and self-care modalities that include the taking of our personal inventory and adjusting our beliefs and lifestyles. In this panel, two master Somatics practitioners and teachers share insights and explain their methods. With: Dr. Ruby Gibson (Lakota, Ojibwe, Mediterranean), author, educator and healer, co-founder and Executive Director of Freedom Lodge; and Staci K. Haines, educator, advocate, healer, co-founder of Generative Somatics and author of The Politics of Trauma.
This discussion took place at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Staci K. Haines, a leader in the field of Somatics, is the co-founder of Generative Somatics, a multiracial social justice organization bringing somatics to social and climate justice leaders and organizations. She specializes in somatics and trauma and leads programs for healers, therapists and social change leaders to transform the impact of individual and social trauma and violence. Her most recent book, The Politics of Trauma: Somatics, Healing and Social Justice is based on that work. Staci is also the author of Healing Sex: A Mind Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma and the founder of GenerationFIVE, a community-based organization working to end the sexual abuse of children within five generations.
Indigenous Peoples already do “green jobs”—they integrate cultural values into business activities and protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity. In order to transform our economies through Indigenous-led solutions, we need to uplift movements and stories inspired by Indigenous resistance. To do this, we must change the culture of philanthropy and impact investing, which still largely circulates in privileged circles. In this panel, we explore how to transition from colonial-capitalism using Indigenous-led strategies that offer us pathways towards an equitable and regenerative future.
With: Sikowis (Plains Cree/Saulteaux), founder, Great Plains Action Society, speaker/writer/artist; Nick Estes, Ph.D. (Lower Brule Sioux Tribe), historian, author, Professor at the University of New Mexico, co-founder, The Red Nation. Hosted by Alexis Bunten (Unangan/ Yup’ik), Co-Director of the Bioneers Indigeneity Program.
This discussion took place at the 2021 Bioneers Conference.
Panelists
Sikowis
Sikowis (aka Christine Nobiss) (Plains Cree/Saulteaux, George Gordon First Nation) grew up in Winnipeg but has been living in Iowa City for 15 years. She is the founder of the Great Plains Action Society, “a collective of Indigenous organizers of the Great Plains working to resist and Indigenize colonial institutions, ideologies, and behaviors.” She speaks, writes and organizes extensively on Indigenous rights, the climate crisis, environmental collapse and colonial capitalism.
Nick Estes
Nick Estes, Ph.D. (Kul Wicasa/Lower Brule Sioux), is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico and a member of the Oak Lake Writers Society, a group of Dakota, Nakota and Lakota writers. In 2014, he was a co-founder of The Red Nation in Albuquerque, NM, an organization dedicated to the liberation of Native people from capitalism and colonialism. He serves on its editorial collective and writes its bi-weekly newsletter. Nick Estes is also the author of: Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.
Alexis Bunten
Alexis Bunten, Ph.D., (Unangan/Yup’ik), Co-Director of the Bioneers’ Indigeneity Program, has been a researcher, media-maker, manager, consultant, and curriculum developer for organizations including the Sealaska Heritage Institute, Alaska Native Heritage Center, and the FrameWorks Institute. She has published widely about Indigenous and environmental issues, and is the author of So, how long have you been Native?: Life as an Alaska Native Tour Guide.
As you surely know by now, the annual Bioneers Conference is right around the corner. In the curation of each year’s event we strive to find and feature leaders poised to make a big difference moving forward. Slouching toward sustainability will not turn the tide. Only immediate, bold and transformative action will enable us to leap over the abyss. The speakers we invite present projects, campaigns, and ideas that can change our future reality – with your help.
This week we’re excited to share stories and interviews from some of the brilliant leaders speaking at #Bioneers2021. We hope you’ll attend the conference if you aren’t already registered. Remember, the event will be available on-demand for three weeks after the fact.
If you can’t make it, please stay tuned to your inbox and follow us on social media next weekend as we share action items and campaigns that you can support.
Rupa Marya | As The World Burns
From a surge in mass uprisings in response to systemic racism, a rise in inflammatory illnesses like gastrointestinal disorders, and an increasing number of climate refugees –– our bodies, society, and the planet are inflamed. In this excerpt from their latest book, INFLAMED: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice, Marya calls for a diagnosis of the inflammation of our planet and collective health.
See Rupa Marya at the 2021 Bioneers Conference, where she will present on “Deep Medicine and the Care Revolution,” perform with Rupa & the April Fishes, and take part in the panel “Designing Futures for Health and Justice.” Learn more here.
Indigeneity Programming at the 2021 Bioneers Conference
Bioneers has honored Indigenous knowledge and lifeways since its inception, and this year is no different. We are so honored to share with you the keynotes, panels, and interactives with Indigenous leaders across many fields and cultural traditions.
Manuel Pastor | Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter
Economists often argue that narrow self-interest is “human nature” to justify our current economy, incentivizing narrow self-interest over community. The pandemic has shown humanity capable of uniting and showing compassion for our neighbors. In this excerpt from his latest book, Solidarity Economics: Why Mutuality and Movements Matter, Manuel Pastor defines the possibility and urgency of solidarity economics guided by principles of mutuality and solidarity.
Join Manuel Pastor at the 2021 Bioneers Conference, where he will deliver the keynote address, “Solidarity Economics: Mutuality, Movements and Momentum” and take part in a panel on “Solidarity Economics: Our Economy, Our Planet, Our Movements.” Learn more here.
Suzanne Simard | Finding the Mother Tree
In nature, trees are linked by a single tree that acts as a central hub. Suzanne Simard refers to this tree as “The Mother Tree.” In her new book, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, Suzanne explores the communal nature of trees and their shared network of interdependency. Check out this excerpt from the introduction to her book!
See Suzanne Simard at the 2021 Bioneers Conference, where she will deliver the keynote address, “Dispatches From the Mother Trees” and participate in the panel “Lessons from the Underground.” Learn more here.
Karla McLaren | Creating Intentional Communities in our Workplaces
All workers deserve to be treated as valued equals and work in safe, humane, and emotionally well-regulated workplaces. In this article, Karla McLaren provides a lens through which we can build an emotionally well-regulated social structure to lead to a healthy social and emotional workplace where people and projects can finally thrive.
Join Karla McLaren at the 2021 Bioneers Conference for the interaction session, “The Power of Emotions at Work: Accessing their Genius for the Good of All” where Karla will guide us to understand how to collaborate with the power of emotions to create respectful and emotionally well-regulated environments where people and projects can thrive. Learn more here.
Ben Goldfarb | Beaver Believer: How Massive Rodents Could Restore Landscapes and Ecosystems At Scale
The consequences of losing beavers were profound: streams eroded, wetlands dried up, and species from salmon to swans lost vital habitat. In his book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals how our idea of a healthy landscape is distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America’s lakes and rivers.
Join Ben Goldfarb at the 2021 Bioneers Conference for the panel, “Biophilic Infrastructure: Letting Nature Lead the Way” with Teo Grossman, Ariel Whitson and Crystal Kolden! Learn more here.
David Montgomery & Anne Biklé | Hidden Half of Nature: Intelligent, Invisible Life In Us and On Us
The latest revelations about microorganisms show that we are not who we thought we were. Scientists are uncovering how microorganisms can help us address some of the world’s most pressing problems. In The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health, authors David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé explore humanity’s relationship with microbes across science and nature by recognizing the essential roles they play in our lives.
See David R. Montgomery & Anne Biklé at the 2021 Bioneers Conference, where they will present the keynote address, “You Are What Your Food Ate,” and take part in the panel “Lesson From The Underground” with Suzanne Simard and Arty Mangan. Learn more about David & Anne.
After working as a public defender for more than 20 years, Jim Sheehan received an unexpected inheritance from a family member. Jim purchased and renovated six buildings in a run down corner of downtown Spokane, Washington and repurposed them for the collective good. For more than 20 years these buildings, now known as the Community Building Campus, have served as a community hub for grassroots campaigns, coalitions, and activists. In the new book, One Block Revolution: 20 Years of Community Building, leaders who have worked from this hub share their stories that highlight the legacy of this collective.
In this excerpt from the introduction by the editor of the book, author and social impact advisor with Measure Meant, Summer Hess recounts her work with Jim beginning as an executive assistant and how it catalyzed her work to build a sustainable future.
Soon after starting my job in 2013 as executive assistant to Jim Sheehan, founder of the Center for Justice and the Community Building Campus in Spokane, Washington, I returned to our office after lunch to a voice message from a Coca-Cola representative. He was calling about an old advertisement painted directly on the southwest corner of the Community Building and offered to have it restored, free of charge.
It seemed like a great idea to me. I was a newly minted MFA in nonfiction writing who felt a strong connection to the Spokane region and Eastern Washington University, where I had earned my degree. I felt the faded advertisements on early 20th-century brick evoked nostalgia for the early days of the Inland Empire. They spoke to a classic Spokane era, when industry boomed, when timber and minerals were trucked out by train and money flowed in, when buildings were so finely crafted each of them had a name. They also brightened and textured a city still creeping back from the shift out of downtown and into the suburbs. These advertisements, along with Art Deco flourishes on historic theaters and wide avenues planned during a period of abundance, made it easier to look past street-level parking garages and sparsely populated storefronts.
Like many mid-sized American cities, Spokane is also experiencing a reversal of this trend. Businesses are repopulating downtown, and people like me—born and raised thousands of miles away—are moving to the region for its high quality of life and education. If rapidly increasing property values are any indication, the city is changing quickly—at a slower pace than some residents would like, but at a rate that seems too sudden for others. As the density in downtown increases, Spokane has become more politically diverse. The Northwest Progressive Institute reports that the Clinton-Kaine ticket won the City of Spokane by eleven points in 2016, while Trump-Pence won Spokane County by nine. In 2020, Biden-Harris carried the city by seventeen points, while the county went Trump-Pence by four. Although this was an unusual election year, Spokane is representative of the national urban-rural divide, where higher population densities are shifting cities to be more progressive than their surroundings. The Community Building Campus (CBC) has served as the nerve center for planning, organizing, campaigning for, and accelerating this kind of progressive social change in the Spokane region.
But in 2013 I wasn’t tuned into the political landscape of Spokane; I was just excited to share a mural restoration project with my boss. I had been hired part-time as his executive assistant, and all that I knew about my job was that I was supposed to answer his mail and manage his calendar, which took about two hours a week. I knew that his previous assistant had helped him with unique and seemingly unrelated projects, from staging a theatrical reading of Love Letters with his life partner, Mary, to serving as non-voting secretary for the Center for Justice board, to organizing an annual pop-up soccer camp for kids at a nearby park. I had no experience in theater, but I could participate in this small piece of historic preservation. Jim and his team had gutted and, wherever possible, restored six buildings on the same block of Main Avenue, and I perceived them as testaments to his commitment to historic architecture. Surely, he would be excited about the mural project, too.
Jim returned to his office after enjoying a cup of soup from the Saranac Pub on the first floor of the building next door, said hello, and sat behind the credenza for his afternoon scroll through The Huffington Post.
“I had an interesting voicemail come through,” I said from my desk that peered out over Main Avenue, watching the lunch rush at the Main Market Co-op and Boots Bakery.
“Oh?” he asked, without looking up. He was dressed in his usual sweatshirt and track pants, which he had worn to a personal training session earlier that day. I told him about the Coca-Cola rep and his offer.
Still scrolling, his immediate response was, “Tell them they can restore the advertisement when they stop using love and happiness to sell a f—ing product.”
His tone was not angry, but it was clear. So was the fact that I was not working for your average developer or philanthropist. This guy saw a lot more at stake in the world than his profit margins or the public visibility of his family’s foundation. Even in something as benign as peeling paint, he saw the manipulative clutches of capitalism clashing with a higher good. I realized how complex my position as an executive assistant was going to be. Should I deliver his opinion verbatim? Should I spare the rep who was obviously a cog in the structure of a global corporation? Should I temper the language and communicate the message?
In that particular moment, I took no action. Telling the Coca-Cola rep about Jim’s stance on capitalism did not seem necessary. It was around that time I printed off the Community Building’s mission statement and taped it to my computer: “To host, inspire, and catalyze social change in the Spokane region.” I had no idea how an executive assistant could be an agent for change, but I kept the mantra in mind as I sorted out my place among the staff who managed the buildings that hosted more than forty nonprofits, small businesses, and state politicians. I did not know what my role was yet, but I knew the CBC was a place I wanted to be.
This was the most dynamic block in the city, and not just for social enterprises and nonprofits. Several other committed business owners operated eateries and unique shops. There was a constant refresh of energy on the block as students flowed in and out of bars and cafés, and activists trotted back and forth from public meetings or one-on-one brainstorming sessions. The CBC also included a two-screen independent movie theater, an art gallery, a food co-op, and a large multi-vendor space called the Saranac Commons. People who knew nothing of social justice movements happening above the ground floor came to eat, drink, and participate in diverse aspects of public life together.
Over time, I began to experience what Jim and the people he worked with were after. I learned that, as a career public defender, Jim understood how inequality threatens the livelihoods—and at times, the lives—of people in our communities, but there was little he could do from within the system to effect change. Then his aunt left him an unexpected windfall inheritance, giving him the chance to make the difference he had always dreamed of. That’s when he began to buy, restore, and repurpose historic buildings on Main Avenue as living, sustainable monuments to social justice. He invited local citizens and community leaders to leverage his personal wealth as a collective resource and
invested in the conditions for social innovation. Most importantly, I believe, he took advantage of a rare opportunity to stop treading water in the current system and to start asking, what’s possible?
Eight years after the Coca-Cola incident, and after several evolutions of my role and responsibilities, I am still the messenger, attempting to name and outline what can happen when resources and space are dedicated not just to a specific project, but a higher purpose. In the process of curating and editing this anthology, I find myself working anew toward that mission I had taped to my computer: to host, inspire, and catalyze social change, this time through the voices and stories of people who built and shaped this vision.
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Our bi-weekly newsletter provides insights into the people, projects, and organizations creating lasting change in the world.
