The People’s Agenda: Chicago meeting calls for unity & collective action to defend working class communities – Liberation News

The People’s Agenda, the first in a series of regional convenings, took place in Chicago on May 10 at the storied First Presbyterian Church of Chicago. More than 150 organizers, faith leaders, students and community members from across the Midwest gathered for the event led by the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization/Pastors for Peace, the ANSWER Coalition and Healthy Hood. 
The conference served as both a strategic summit and a rallying cry for solidarity in the face of the unprecedented assault on poor and working-class communities, immigrants and social movements — from escalating ICE raids and attacks on public education, the rolling back of worker rights, the privatization of essential services and the continuation of war.
Attendees participated in panels, strategic discussions and workshops aimed at deepening resistance and fostering unity across faith-based and non-secular movements for labor rights, housing, healthcare, anti-mass incarceration and peace. 
Speaking from the sanctuary of the celebrated church where many former revolutionary activists once stood, Rev. Claudia De la Cruz, Executive Director of IFCO and the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s 2024 Presidential candidate, underscored the importance of faith-based radicalism in shaping today’s resistance.
“We have a Christian right that utilizes faith as a weapon and we must utilize it as a tool for liberation. Organize our congregations, our communities of faith, into hubs of resistance. We need to mobilize against every policy that harms poor, migrant and marginalized communities,” said De la Cruz. “The biggest instrument of capitalism is dismemberment and hopelessness and this is a moment to inject hope into our communities. We are winning and that’s why they’re hitting us so hard but if we stop fighting, we lose.”
The intersection of faith and liberation 
Radical traditions within U.S. faith communities have played a pivotal role in shaping social movements. IFCO was founded in 1967 by progressive and revolutionary clergy and activists — particularly Black and Latino faith leaders — in the wake of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. It was envisioned as an explicitly interfaith organization committed to justice in oppressed communities within the United States and abroad. 
Its formation coincided with a radical period of U.S. history: the height of the Vietnam War, the assassination of Malcolm X, and the growth of revolutionary Black churches aligned with the Black Theology of Liberation (like that of Dr. James Cone). IFCO was a product of this moment, refusing the passive charity model of most churches and instead asserting the church’s duty to fight structural racism, capitalism and the U.S. empire. 
Pastors for Peace is IFCO’s best-known project, created in response to U.S. intervention in Central America — especially the U.S.-funded contra war against the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. Its founder, Rev. Lucius Walker, was a Black Baptist minister and revolutionary Christian who survived a contra attack in Nicaragua in 1988. From that point forward, he dedicated himself to challenging U.S. imperialism, particularly through people-to-people solidarity caravans — delivering material aid and building ties with revolutionary movements in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The People’s Agenda marks a continuation of that legacy, as organizers highlighted Chicago as both a symbol of struggle and a center of resistance — from its militant teacher strikes to its status as a sanctuary city and hub for anti-ICE activism. Deepening the connections to Chicago’s radical faith traditions, Rev. Tanya Lozano-Washington, Founder of Healthy Hood and Minister at Holy Ground Chicago, opened the day’s events. Lozano-Washington is the daughter of Emma Lozano and Walter “Slim” Coleman who provided immigrant rights activist Elvira Arellano sanctuary in their church.
Collective struggle and solidarity
The event also focused on the increasing domestic challenges facing the working class and the pressing need to build a unified movement for liberation. Sessions explored the political and economic agenda driving attacks on migrants, civil rights, labor protections and public services. 
Speakers stressed the importance of cross-sector collaboration and called for building long-term relationships across faith communities, labor unions, immigrant rights groups and anti-war networks. On the panel “How are Communities Organizing,” Kathryn Stender of the Party for Socialism and Liberation spoke on how organizers forge those connections. “Everyone has something that they deeply care about that is under attack. That is unfortunately the experience of every working and oppressed person, which is the vast majority of people in the world, so it is really trying to have those conversations and find what those things are and how we can really build that movement to support them,” she said. 
The day’s program featured two panels, “Systemic Crisis, Collective Fight” and “How are Communities Organizing.” Workshops focused on political education, social media and communications and community organizing. 
More than 30 different organizations were represented at the conference, including Palestinian Youth Movement, Chicago Religious Liberation Network on Latin America, Cosecha, Openlands, Chicago Torture Justice Center, National Immigrant Justice Center, Service Employees International Union, Chicago Teachers Union and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.
Caro Yao with IFCO/Pastors for Peace, reflected, “We’ve had so many people come with ideas today on building campaigns around housing, around ending endless wars, around merging faith communities with the movement at large, and to merge the immigrant rights movement with the movement to stop detention and stop mass incarceration … We were able to have so many people from these different sectors from unions, from students, from people working in these campaigns day in and day out to plot out how is it that organizations can work more together, but also how our organizations can grow and how our communities can be reached.” 
To close the event, Yao and alithia zamantakis of the Chicago branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, shared a series of resolutions highlighting key themes from the day’s gathering which emphasize the importance of community engagement, political education and courageous action as the path forward in the fight for liberation and socialism.
IFCO/Pastors for Peace and the ANSWER Coalition plan to follow this event with a series of regional convenings throughout the year to maintain momentum and continue building a united front.
Feature photo: Rev. Claudia De la Cruz, Executive Director of IFCO, addresses the People’s Agenda on a panel including Jhonathan Gómez of the Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America, Isabel Conde of the National Immigrant Justice Center and Saul Garcia of the Chicago Teachers Union. Liberation photo.
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