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From Protest to Politics: Women's Movements and Strengthening Democracies

Presenter(s): UB Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy, UB College of Arts and Sciences
Date: April 11, 5:30 pm-April 12, 2019 5:30 pm
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From Protest to Politics: Women's Movements and Strengthening Democracies

On April 11 and 12, 2019, the University at Buffalo's Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy and the College of Arts and Sciences will host the conference “From Protest to Politics: Women’s Movements and Strengthening Democracies.” For the last sixty years, there has been a consistent pattern of the growth of democratic governments produced by engaged citizens working together in social movements. Often led by diverse women, these social movements won the expansion of civil rights, political participation, and new laws to ensure equality. However, we now face a global rise in authoritarian politics and a rising concern over the future of liberal democracies. The conference brings together scholars to analyze the current moment.

For more information on the conference, click here. 

To register for the conference, click here. 

Schedule for Thursday, April 11:

North Campus, 509 O'Brian Hall

5:30pm: Registration 

6:00pm: Building Women's Movements/Women in Movements Locally: Radical Coalitions in Buffalo

  • Rahwa Ghirmatzion, Executive Director - PUSH Buffalo
  • Luana DeJesus, Buffalo Anti Racism Coalition
  • Win Min Thant, Educator, Community Academic Center
  • Andrea Ó Sùlleabháin, Executive Director, Partnership for the Public Good

7:30pm: Reception

Schedule for Friday, April 12:

South Campus, 105 Harriman Hall 

9:00am: Registration

9:30am: Opening Remarks, Gwynn Thomas, Conference Organizer 

10:00am-12:00pm: Panel 1, Radical Coalitions and New Models of Politics: Lessons from Intersectional Movements

  • Tamar Carroll, Feminist Genealogies: Coalitions for Social Change from the War on Poverty through the AIDS Epidemic
  • Celeste Montoya Kirk, Guerreras y Puentes: Legacies of Chicana Feminism 
  • Lina Maria Murillo, Institutionalizing Reproductive Justice: Chicanas and Healthcare in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

12:00-1:00pm: Lunch (provided for all participants) 

1:00-3:00pm: Panel 2, Organizing in/through/from Marginalized Locations: Trade Unions, Rural Agricultural Coops, and the Rust Belt

  • Victoria Wolcott, Repertoires of Resistance: Social Unionism and Workers' Education in Interwar America
  • Cherisse Jones-Branch, An Agrarian Women's Movement?: Race, Gender, and Activism in the Rural Jim Crow Sout
  • Lara Putnam, The Ferrykeepers' Granddaughter: Progressive Women and the Democratic Renewal in Rust Belt and Rural America

3:00pm: Coffee Break

3:30-5:30pm: Panel 3, Women's Movements and Protecting and Promoting Democracy: Lessons from a Global Perspective 

  • Hannah Britton, Democracy Stops at My Front Door: Gender, Justice, and Community in South Africa
  • Elizabeth Friedman, Resistance, Participation, and Alliance: Democracy Lessons from Latin American Feminist and Queer Activism 
  • Laurel Weldon, Global Trends in Feminist Mobilization: Prospects and Implications for Democracy

5:30pm: Closing Remarks, Gwynn Thomas