Power is never given freely—it must be taken. And right now, shareholders extract it, while working people pay the price. But from the picket lines to the policy fights, a rebellion is brewing. 

Join us to hear these essential voices in the movement for racial and economic justice. From exploring how inventive economic policies can ensure corporations deliver for workers—instead of just CEOs—to what a ground-up resistance looks like in action, this session is about more than wages or worker power. It’s about who has a say in our democracy-under-deconstruction and who has a stake in our economy.

A link to watch the video will be emailed to all registered participants on the day of the event. The video will be available to view for 24 hours.

Speakers:

Dr. Carmen Rojas is the president and CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation. Under her leadership, the foundation launched the prestigious Freedom Scholar award, and since starting in 2020 granted more than $252 million in funding to dozens of organizations doing the hard work of shifting power to those people who have long been excluded from having it. Prior to MCF, Dr. Rojas was the cofounder and CEO of the Workers Lab, an innovation lab that partners with workers to develop new ideas that help them succeed and flourish.

Faiz Shakir is the founder and executive director of More Perfect Union, a nonprofit education, advocacy, and journalism organization with a mission to build power for the working class. He also serves as chief political advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders, after running his 2020 presidential campaign.

Lenore Palladino is an associate professor in the Department of Economics and the School of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a research associate at the UMass Amherst Political Economy Research Institute and a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. She holds a PhD from the New School University in economics and a JD from Fordham Law School.

Brendan Walsh is a labor and political leader with 30 years’ experience in winning union organizing, union contracts, community organizing, policy, and electoral campaigns. Brendan graduated from Harvard University before enrolling in a PhD program in American studies at Yale University. While there, he became a leader of GESO, the union for graduate-student teachers and researchers, where he collaborated in campaigns for social justice with Yale’s unions of clerical, technical, maintenance, and dining hall employees. Brendan has served as the executive director of community organizations Worker Power and the Worker Power Institute since 2009.

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This event is part of the 2025 Marguerite Casey Foundation Summer School, in partnership with Haymarket Books.