At Haymarket, we understand political education as movement memory: the ongoing exchange between study and collective struggle. It is not limited to organizing skills, but deepens our understanding of the forces shaping political life and expands the horizon of what movements can imagine and achieve. Political education has always been central to social movements, helping to develop organizers who are grounded in history, rooted in collective experience, and prepared for the long haul.
Radical books of theory and history establish a firm footing for contemporary activists by rooting us in the experiences and lessons generated across decades and continents. From the start, Haymarket’s mission has been to make our books a vibrant and organic part of social movements and the development of a critical, engaged, and internationalist left. Our political education work grows directly out of Haymarket’s core mission as a social movement publisher.
Haymarket’s political education activities encompass a variety of projects. Haymarket House, our community space in Chicago, is animated daily by activist trainings, panel discussions, in-depth courses, film screenings, and poetry readings. We bring together radical thinkers and organizers for virtual teach-ins, book launches, and urgent discussions of our political moment through our regular online events series, Haymarket Live. The podcast series on our Haymarket Audio channel provide deep dives on left-wing theory, history, and strategy. And each year, the Socialism Conference gathers thousands of activists for four days of political education, strategic discussion, and community building.
We believe learning, in its many forms, is a lifelong practice at the heart of radical politics. Reading groups help clarify how we arrived here and the structures that shape the world around us. Creating and sharing art with others stretches and strengthens our political imagination. A strike or a mass demonstration can be formative, instilling deep political conviction and solidarity. Shared collectively, these experiences help build stronger and more durable movements.
At a time when spaces for collective learning are rapidly disappearing, Haymarket’s political education efforts aim to develop movement infrastructure by facilitating experiments and conversations that can build vital practices of learning on the left. The sustainability of political organizing depends on the flourishing of a healthy left ecosystem that encompasses many backgrounds and viewpoints. We aim to contribute to that ecosystem by cultivating dynamic and comradely spaces for strategic conversations, critical debates, and other exchanges that explore fruitful themes, possibilities, and tensions within and across our movements.
All of our work is guided by the conviction that liberatory politics are for everyone, not just experts or specialists. Political education should cultivate the confidence that ordinary people, acting together, can understand the world they inhabit—and change it.