We spoke with Civic Hall member Matt Davis on measuring racism in the financial system, how investment apps can do better, and on backing our words with our actions. Matt (he/him) is a strategic communications consultant focused on antiracist organizing.
Black Businesses, Art, Entrepreneurship, & Intellect for #BlackOutDay2020, #StopHateForProfit, & the Movement for Black Lives | Resources, Events, Content, and much more.
In my last post (Next-Generation Engagement Platforms, May 12), I covered three of the most powerful open source next-generation public engagement platforms. These platforms are compelling because they invite residents and citizens to do so much more than vote and submit complaints to governments. Each platform I covered invites its...
Translations, Interventions, Crowdsourcing, Innovations & more from black voices and the Black Lives Matter Movement
Almost 16 years ago, Zephyr Teachout wrote an article for the pre-pre-cursor to this site, PersonalDemocracy.com, titled, “Come Together Now: The Internet’s Unlit Fuse.” Having just finished two intense years in the trenches of Democratic presidential campaigning, first as a digital organizing trail-cutter for Vermont Governor Howard Dean, and then...
Inspiration for remotely engaging your constituency
A Civic Hall virtual conversation, Wednesday April 29, noon-1:00pn EDT When the US Congress recessed in mid-March so that Members as well as congressional staff could go home as COVID-19 social distancing measures came into effect, it did so without preparing to conduct remote deliberations. Now, Congress is stuck in...
In democracies worldwide, billions of citizens hold an untold number of interests, opinions and positions. Political reality on the ground is vastly more complex than our political symbols and categories allow us to express. Our political choices are artificially constrained by existing abstractions that either compress us into just two large...
Dear Personal Democracy Forum and Civic Hall community: Some of you may have heard that Pawel Adamowicz, the Mayor of Gdansk, Poland, was brutally stabbed to death two days ago while on stage during a popular charity fundraising event. Ironically the event was focused on raising money for medical equipment for local hospitals...
In just the last two weeks, newly elected Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has gained half a million new Twitter followers, zooming from 1.6M to 2.1M. On Instagram, another platform where she excels at sharing interesting glimpses of her life as an activist-turned-newly-successful-politician, Ocasio-Cortez now has 1.6M followers, putting her in...