AAPIP Sips: Lessons From Grassroots Organizing

For more than 175 years, anti-Asian violence has been a recurring political tool in the United States. Historian and activist Scott Kurashige documents that pattern in his new book, American Peril: The Violent History of Anti-Asian Racism, and argues that lasting change comes from organizing.

On September 25, Kurashige sits down with former Philadelphia City Councilmember Helen Gym for a conversation about what that organizing looks like in practice. Gym has spent decades organizing alongside Philadelphia’s Chinatown against displacement threats like a proposed stadium, a casino, and a proposed arena. Kurashige helped build Asian American United, the organization that led last year’s successful campaign to stop a billionaire-backed arena from displacing the neighborhood, and has spent 36 years studying the history his new book documents.

This is a fishbowl-format conversation: two organizers who’ve worked in the same communities, discussing grassroots organizing, political education, and what philanthropy can learn from successful movement work.

The first 30 registrants receive a free copy of American Peril.