2025 Peace & Justice Action Conference

Conference Workshops

Organizing: A Science & An Art Track

Effective organizing requires both precision and creativity—it’s a science rooted in strategy and an art driven by passion. This track explores the skills, tools, and methodologies that empower organizers to mobilize communities, build sustainable movements, and drive meaningful change. Sessions will delve into data-driven strategies, relationship-building techniques, storytelling for impact, and adaptive leadership. Whether you’re a seasoned organizer or just beginning your journey, this track will provide actionable insights and innovative approaches to enhance your organizing toolkit.

Workshops in this track include:

• Countering White Christian Nationalism

Presenter: Aaron Scott (he/him), Gender Justice Staff Officer, Freedom Church of the Poor

Gain insight into the growing influence of White Christian Nationalism and learn how to build local and national resistance movements across generations.

Join this workshop for a roadmap on for building local and national power, across generations, to counter the explosive growth of White Christian Nationalism.

• See the Light or Feel the Heat: Protests, Escalations, and Organizing in This Moment and Beyond

Presenter: Liz Moore (she/her), Executive Director, Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane

This workshop covers strategies for organizing protests and high-impact actions to mobilize communities and pressure decision-makers.

You want to organize a protest? You want to activate more people, pressure policy-makers, counter fascism, and build grassroots power for justice and peace? Everyday people have accomplished extraordinary things by organizing together. To win the changes we want requires people-powered campaigns of organized, planned tactics that put increasing pressure on decision-makers to take the action we want them to take. In this workshop we’ll discuss key strategies for kick-a** events to take action for shared goals and change the balance of power.

• 10 Things Every Activist Should Know

Presenter: Nicolai Jaggar (he/him), PJALS Youth Organizer;  Foster Transue (he/they), PJALS Youth Organizer

Discover the ten most essential lessons for new and seasoned activists to navigate movement-building and organizing effectively.

The questions we ask as Organizers are essential to the process and a successful movement. What are those questions, why do they matter, and how do we answer them? In this workshop, we boil down the 10 most important things a new organizer should know, and how to obtain that knowledge in different situations. Learn the first steps of becoming a successful activist in this interactive workshop! This workshop is a great refresher for experienced activists too – it’s universal knowledge in learning to become an organizer!

• Engaging People to Act: Key Ingredients for Recruitment & Mobilization

Presenter: Blair David Tweedy Anundson (he/him), Lead Organizer, Service Employees International Union Healthcare Local 1199 NW

Isolation weakens movements, but engagement strengthens them! Learn key skills to effectively recruit and mobilize people for change, using strategic conversations and proven organizing methods.

Isolation is like Kryptonite when you’re fighting against systemic oppression and exploitation. Come sharpen your skills at engaging people to get active to create change shoulder-to-shoulder! It all comes down to the art and science of “the organizing conversation.” Learn time-tested tools to help you put your time & efforts to the most effective use and make it more likely you’ll win!

Current Issues and Ways Forward Track

Understanding the past and how it relates to the present is instrumental to shaping our future. This track provides an in-depth look at the pressing social, political, and economic issues of our time, equipping participants with the knowledge and tools needed to take action. Experts and movement leaders will break down the current landscape, analyze systemic challenges, and offer strategies for organizing and advocacy. These sessions will help participants connect knowledge with action, transforming awareness into meaningful change.

Workshops in this track include:

• What is Fascism Then & Now: Strategies for Communal Resistance

Presenters: Yasaman Naraghi (she/her), Steering Committee Co-Chair, PJALS; Sally Winkle (she/her), PJALS Steering Committee Co-Chair

Explore the history of fascism and its modern parallels. This workshop will provide tools for resistance, inspired by past movements

This workshop traces the history of fascism by looking at parallels between European fascism in the 20th century and Trumpism of now. We’ll also talk about 20th century resistance movements and how we can adapt strategies for today.

• What is Happening in Palestine/Israel and How Do We Respond?

Presenters: Alice Rothchild (she/her), MD, Jewish Voice for Peace; Sabrene Odeh (she/her), Baladna

A discussion on the realities on the ground in Palestine/Israel and strategies to advocate for just U.S. policies.

Racial Justice: Dismantling Systems, Building Power Track

What does it look like to dismantle oppressive systems while building new structures rooted in equity and liberation? This track will explore the current state of racial justice, the historical context of systemic racism, and strategies for transformative change. Through discussions, workshops, and skill-building sessions, participants will gain tools for effective organizing, policy advocacy, and community empowerment. Whether you’re engaged in grassroots activism, institutional change, or personal growth in anti-racism work, this track offers a space to learn, connect, and take action toward a just and liberated future.

Workshops in this track include:

• Know Your Rights

Presenter: Nicole C. Ruiz, Field Organizer, Nuestras Raíces Centro Comunitario

Learn your legal rights when interacting with law enforcement, including immigration officers, and how to advocate while protecting your mental health.

This Know Your Rights workshop focuses on providing participants with a strong foundational knowledge of people’s rights when interacting with law enforcement, including border and immigration enforcement. Particular attention will be paid to situational rights and what to do in the aftermath if someone witnesses an interaction or is detained. There will also be a discussion about how people can be strong allies and advocates during these difficult times while still considering their mental health.

Sustaining Ourselves, Sustaining Our Movement Track

Movements can only thrive when the people within them are nourished. This track explores the vital connection between personal well-being and collective liberation, offering tools for avoiding burnout, fostering resilience, and creating sustainable organizing practices. Sessions will focus on community care, healing justice, and strategies for long-term movement building. Whether you’re an organizer, activist, or supporter, this track will provide space to reflect, recharge, and strengthen the foundations that keep both individuals and movements alive.

Workshops in this track include:

• Race-Class Analysis: Building a Collective Strategy (Introduction to BOLD)

Presenter: Michaela Brown (she/her), Community Member

This workshop introduces the Race-Class Analysis framework, which helps build cross-race and cross-class solidarity for meaningful policy change.

When we join together with a common understanding and analysis of oppression, the strength and power of our voices propels the movement for racial and economic justice forward. But what does it mean to build a collective analysis? How do we use that analysis to call more people into the movement and secure key policy wins? And how do we do this in the context of select politicians who continually try to divide us along racial lines through fear-based, coded racist messaging? Through the Building Organizing Leadership Development (BOLD) project at PJALS, we try to answer these questions by developing a shared Race-Class Analysis. The Race-Class Analysis is an intersectional framework of understanding that names both race- and class-based oppression in the context of current social issues (like mass incarceration). It relies on the understanding that, while select politicians want us to think we have more in common with wealthy elites than we do with our neighbors down the road, we know the only way to achieve racial and economic justice is through cross-race cross-class movement building. We use the Race-Class Analysis to create strategic and intentional messages that have been proven to reach larger audiences and advance progressive policy agendas. Join us for this abbreviated introduction to BOLD, the Race-Class Analysis, and how intentional and collective analysis can get us closer to the equitable and just communities we envision.

• Feeling Ourselves, Feeling Each Other: Introduction to Politicized Somatics

Presenter: Lex Gavin (they/them), Social Justice Facilitator; Liz Moore (she/her), Executive Director, Peace & Justice Action League of Spokane

Explore somatic practices to deepen self-awareness and resilience, helping organizers maintain emotional well-being while resisting systemic oppression.

Somatics or embodiment is based on the Greek word soma, meaning the body in its living wholeness. By building fluency in our bodies as a source of information, we can become aware of the ways we are physically shaped by the world around us. Somatic practices allow us to have greater choice under pressure so that we may take actions towards our longings. Feeling more allows us to organize from the inside out and offers a powerful strategy to combat rising fascism. “Somatics feels into how, in a collective or group, patterns of pain can indicate the mass, or intergenerational, trauma people are surviving. And how each of us has the power to help each feel more, heal, and move toward our longings for liberation and justice together.” – adrienne maree brown, Pleasure Activism

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Conference Schedule

9:00-9:30 Conference Opening Plenary

9:30-9:45 Networking Break

9:45-10:45 Workshop Session 1

10:45-11:00 Networking Break

11:00-12:00 Workshop Session

12:00-1:00 Lunch Break

1:00-1:45 Keynote Plenary

1:45-2:00 Networking Break

2:00-3:00 Workshop Session

3:15-3:30 Networking Break

3:30-4:30 Workshop Session

4:30-5:00 Conference Closing Plenary

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Event Sponsors

• ACLU of Washington
• Asians for Collective Liberation Spokane (ACL Spokane)
• Greater Spokane Progress
• Odyssey Youth Movement
• Pro-Choice Washington
• Spectrum Center Spokane
• Spokane Education Association (SEA)
• The Fig Tree
• Veterans for Peace Spokane Chapter 35
• Western States Center

Learn more and become a sponsor today!

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