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Chris Crass

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Chris Crass is a longtime organizer working to build powerful working class-based, feminist, multiracial movements for collective liberation. Throughout the 1990s, he was an organizer with Food Not Bombs, an economic justice anti-poverty group, strengthening the direct action-based anti-capitalist Left. In the 2000s, he was an organizer with the Catalyst Project, which combines political education and organizing to develop and support anti-racist politics, leadership, and organization in white communities and builds dynamic multiracial alliances locally and nationally. He has written and spoken widely about anti-racist organizing, lessons from women of color feminism, strategies to build visionary movements, and leadership for liberation. He graduated from San Francisco State University in Race, Class, Gender and Power Studies and currently lives in Knoxville, Tennessee with his partner and their son, River. He is a member of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

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Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy
Author: Chris Crass with Introduction by Chris Dixon and a Foreword by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-654-4
Published March 2013
Size: 9 x 6
Page count: 300
Subjects: Activism
$20.00

Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy is for activists engaging with dynamic questions of how to create and support effective movements for visionary systemic change. Chris Crass’s collection of essays and interviews presents us with powerful lessons for transformative organizing through offering a firsthand look at the challenges and the opportunities of anti-racist work in white communities, feminist work with men, and bringing women of color feminism into the heart of social movements. Drawing on two decades of personal activist experience and case studies of anti-racist social justice organizations, Crass insightfully explores ways of transforming divisions of race, class, and gender into catalysts for powerful vision, strategy, and movement building in the United States today.

Over the last two decades, activists in the United States have been experimenting with new politics and organizational approaches that stem from a fusion of radical political traditions and liberation struggles. Drawing inspiration from women of color feminism, justice struggles in communities of color, anarchist and socialist movements, the broad upsurges of the 1960s and '70s, and social movements in the Global South, a new generation of activists has sought to understand the past while building a movement for today’s world. Towards Collective Liberation contributes to this project by examining two primary dynamic trends in these efforts: 1) the anarchist movement of the 1990s and 2000s, through which tens of thousands of activists were introduced to radical politics, direct action organizing, democratic decision making, and the profound challenges of taking on systems of oppression, privilege, and power in society at large and in the movement itself; and 2) white anti-racist organizing efforts from the 2000s to the present as part of a larger strategy to build broad-based, effective multiracial movements in the United States.

Crass’s collection begins with an overview of the anarchist tradition as it relates to contemporary activism and an in-depth look at Food Not Bombs, one of the leading anarchist groups in the revitalized radical Left in the 1990s. The second and third sections of the book combine stories and lessons from Crass’s experiences of working as an anti-racist and feminist organizer, combining insights from the Civil Rights Movement, women of color feminism, and anarchism to address questions of leadership, organization building, and revolutionary strategy. In section four, Crass discusses how contemporary organizations have responded to the need for white activists to lead anti-racist efforts in white communities and how these efforts have contributed to multiracial alliances in building a broad-based movement for collective liberation. Offering rich case studies of successful organizing, and grounded, thoughtful key lessons for movement building, Toward Collective Liberation is a must-read for anyone working for a better world.

Praise:

"In his writing and organizing, Chris Crass has been at the forefront of building the grassroots, multi-racial, feminist movements for justice we need. Towards Collective Liberation takes on questions of leadership, building democratic organizations, and movement strategy, on a very personal level that invites us all to experiment and practice the way we live our values while struggling for systemic change. " —Elizabeth 'Betita' Martinez, founder of the Institute for Multiracial Justice and author of De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century

“Chris Crass goes into the grassroots to produce a political vision that will catalyze political change. These are words from the heart, overflowing onto the streets.” —Vijay Prashad, author of Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World

"A deeply important, engaged, and learned defense of anarchism, class politics, and anti-racism. Grounded in study, organizing, and struggle, Towards Collective Liberation is a significant contribution to the recent history of the U.S. left." —David Roediger, author of Wages of Whiteness

"In his activism and writing, Chris Crass has been able to articulate and practice a transformative model for social change. Guided by a vision of collective liberation that centers the experience and leadership of women of color, Chris has done groundbreaking work to realize the revolutionary potential of grassroots multiracial alliances." —Harsha Walia, co-founder of No One Is Illegal and Radical Desis

"Chris Crass offers penetrating analysis and a keen understanding of the political and cultural dynamics shaping the U.S. We can all learn from reading this." —Rev. David Billings, The People's Institute for Survival and Beyond and United Methodist Church Elder

"Part political biography, part political history and thoughtful political analysis, this book is on-time in its laying out of personally tested strategies for eliminating racism, sexism, and capitalism. The juxtaposition of feminist, anarchist, and anti-racist thinking is a great jolt to the weary practices of progressive non-profits that skim the surface of change."—Suzanne Pharr, author of In the Time of the Right: Politics for Liberation and Homophobia: a weapon of sexism

“In Towards Collective Liberation, Chris Crass has shared with us a valuable collection of thoughtful, honest and humble reflections on what it means to build the world that we are waiting for. Chris achieves the difficult task of practice driven theory—encouraging and allowing all of us to be present in our work, to lead with our hearts, and to embody the change that we seek. It is through these critical and sometimes painfully honest reflections that we as organizers, activists and social change makers are given the courage to do the same.”—Alicia Garza, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER)

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Events

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Reviews

Towards Collective Liberation on Emergent Voices
Towards Collective Liberation on Left Eye Review
Towards Collective Liberation on Asian American Movement EZine

Towards Collective Liberation: Building Successful Social Movements: A Review
by Holly Roach
Emergent Voices
April 1st, 2013

“Transformative social movements are always much more dynamic and intelligent than individual organizers, no matter how reflective, tireless and courageous such individuals may be. This is one of the amazing things about collective struggle for justice. At the same time there are always individuals who crystallize movement experiences, who distill and share hard won insights and help to catalyze much needed discussions. Chris Crass is one of these people. For two decades, he has consistently given expression to the ideas, questions, and lessons of a generational cohort of radical organizers and activists in the United States.”

New Book Explores Organizing Strategies for Anarchists: A Review
by James Tracy
Left Eye Books
March 25th, 2013

Crass walks anarchism down a very different road. His anarchism, and that of the political organizations he helped build, isn’t afraid of community organizing. It also isn’t afraid to reach across the radical aisle and work with marxists, feminists, liberals and just about any other category that makes it to the meeting. His new book, Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy may be the “Rules for Radicals” for a growing trend of anarcho-practicos who up until this point have had little literature to make their case with.

Towards Collective Liberation: A Review
bby Stacy Kono
Asian American Movement Ezine
April 24th, 2013

As a woman of color, who has experienced working with white activists who are struggling to figure out their role as an ally, I was struck by Chris’ sharing of his personal praxis, his willingness to describe the challenges he faced and continues to engage with in his own development as an organizer to be aware of and understand his privilege as a white man. This is something that many other white activists have a hard time acknowledging out of shame or fear – as if admitting the challenge will somehow delegitimize their commitment. Chris’ vulnerability and honesty models how our commitment to social justice movement building can and needs to be drawn from an “ethic of love.”

Towards Collective Liberation is a thoughtful and generous invitation to organizers to build off the history of radical movement building with creativity, authenticity, and love.

Interviews

U.S. Human Rights Network interview with Chris Crass about the Catalyst Project

For more from Chris...

Talks

United for Justice Posters, Blogs & Toolkits

We are the 99% United for Justice, Not Divided By Racism
Update on the United for Justice, Not Divided by Racism
Occupy Opportunities for Collective Liberation: Catalyst Project’s Anti-Racist Organizing Strategy
Catalyzing Liberation Toolkit: Anti-Racist Organizing to Build the 99% Movement

In the News

We Are the 99%: United for Justice, Not Divided By Racism
poster project by Melanie Cervantes and Chris Crass
reposted from DignidadRebelde
Originally posted October 30th, 2011

Goals of the "United for Justice, Not Divided by Racism" poster

1. We want to build up powerful, working class-based, feminist, multiracial movements for collective liberation. The Occupy movement is an incredible convergence of movements for economic, social, racial, gender, and environmental justice. The Occupy movement notonly resonates with millions of people, but it actively invites millions of people to participate in the creation of both the movement and the vision of what we are working towards. This poster is a tool to help build up the Occupy movement, deepen the anti-racist analysisof the movement, and express the solidarity of white communities with immigrant families of color in the 99%. We hope the poster will help express the Occupy movement's support for immigrant rights struggles around the country.

we are the 99% spanish Update on the United for Justice, Not Divided by Racism
poster project by Melanie Cervantes and Chris Crass
reposted from DignidadRebelde
November 22nd, 2012

Thank you so much to all of you who played many different roles in making this project highly successful. From raising money, making donations, giving feedback, distributing the posters, and spreading the word about the project. Special love to Caitlin Carmody who shipped all of the posters from Berkeley.

Overview of the impact of all our efforts thus far.

• We printed up 15,000 11x17 inch posters at the radical printing press Inkworks, in Berkeley. They also hooked up low cost shipping. The posters went out to thirty cities in twenty states.

• We know that the anti-racist collective Groundwork, gave out hundreds in Madison, Wisconsin at a Recall Gov. Walker rally. Posters have been given out at political education sessions at Occupy Washington D.C.

we are the 99% Occupy Opportunities for Collective Liberation: Catalyst Project’s Anti-Racist Organizing Strategy
By Chris Crass
Left Turn
Originally posted December 14, 2011

The Occupy movement is one of the most profound organizing opportunities in decades, because of its mass invitation for the 99% to step forward and challenge systemic economic inequality. For white anti-racists, this is a moment when we can engage with, support, and organize hundreds of thousands of white people to deeply connect economic justice to racial and gender justice.

Catalyzing Liberation Toolkit: Anti-Racist Organizing to Build the 99% Movement
by Catalyst Project and Chris Crass
Organizing Upgrade
February 7, 2012

Amie Fishman of Catalyst Project and Chris Crass recently developed a toolkit on anti-racist organizing in the Occupy moment. We are excited to share the introduction to the toolkit with our readers.

Why anti-racist organizing?

Catalyst Project believes that anti-racist practice and organizing can help us to build the vibrant massive movements for global justice we need to create a world where all people are free from oppression. We are fighting for a world where everyone has housing, income, food, education, health care and is able to live in a way that is sustainable and in harmony with the earth. We call this collective liberation, and it is at the core of our work.

Check out Chris Crass speaking at a talk in the Catalyst Project Study and Struggle session on "Lessons from Immigrant Rights Organizing in Arizona 2010"

Chris's talk begins at 2:50 in this first video

Continue watching the talk here