The 2023 Majority Leaders Speaker Series
Your favorite leadership program, Majority Leaders, is back with a rebrand: Meet the Majority Leaders Speaker Series!
This is a free, biweekly, summer event series that will put you directly in conversation with leading grassroots activists and elected officials as you learn how we can make the Majority Rules a reality. Throughout the summer, you’ll get insights from real leaders solving real problems, build community with other women, and develop the leadership skills needed to affect real change.
We know this moment requires skilled leaders – and we know that you are the leaders your community and our country need.
Our Lives Are Safe
In this session, we identified how gun violence disproportionately targets and harms women, specifically women of color, LGBTQIA+ women, and women with disabilities, and heard from organizers at Community Justice Action Fund and Progress Michigan about how, together, we can work to prevent gun violence and ensure our leaders support common sense gun policies.
“It has just been a full circle moment to then join a movement of gun violence prevention advocates and folks who are doing gun violence prevention work in our communities — in communities that look just like mine — that save lives.”
Our Bodies Are Respected
We heard from organizers at SisterSong, Lillian’s List, and the National Network of Abortion Funds who continue to carve the way and organize for reproductive freedom in the wake of past and upcoming efforts to restrict our freedoms, and learned how we can use our resources to ensure we live in a country where all bodies are truly respected.
“Abortion funds challenge and defy the systems designed to oppress us. We organize outside of the confines of a deeply flawed and broken system, refusing to be limited by its failures.”
Our Work Is Valued
We heard from organizers at Starbucks Workers United and Aspiring Educators of Michigan about how to build a world where all of our work is valued and learned how Gen Z and Millennial women, through union membership and labor organizing, are leading the societal shift in how we view work.
“It has been incredible and amazing to plug in, develop, and be a part of this ecosystem of solidarity, because it’s not just one fight. It’s not the fight against Starbucks. It’s not the fight on a contract with Trader Joe’s. It’s the fight that we all have to make sure our work is valued.”
Our Families Are Supported
During Pride month, we heard directly from Chicago activist Precious Brady-Davis and Georgia State Representative Park Cannon on how to support all families, especially queer families, and ensure they are able to thrive.
“Two Black trans people loving each other is a revolutionary act in itself, and we believe that our love is one that needs to be protected. It is one that needs to be cherished.”
Our Government Represents Us
In this session, we learned about the pathways to running for office and the barriers to becoming an elected leader. We also heard from U.S. Representative Jennifer McClellan, Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, and Michigan State Senator Mary Cavanagh, who all practice the ethos ‘we save ourselves’ and are working tirelessly to represent young women.
“Oftentimes, the hardest thing to do is to step outside of what is comfortable. Being OK with being uncomfortable is something that is really important.”