Join the Repro Justice campaign as we meet to discuss our upcoming events, actions, and more. We will be going over our campaign, how you can get involved! RSVP for the zoom link.

Shout Mouse Press is excited to host a powerful afternoon of conversation & community with prominent D.C. poet and author Tony Keith Jr. and local youth authors from the newest anthology, The Light Looks Like Me: Words on Love from Queer Youth. This intergenerational panel conversation will explore writing and love. Come at 12PM to browse books by trans/queer authors at the on-site book fair (hosted by Little District Books), enjoy light brunch fare, and connect with other literary community members. The panel will begin at 1PM.

This event is presented in collaboration with The D.C. LGBTQ+ Community Center and OutWrite DC. ASL interpretation will be provided. Free & open to all.

On Friday, August 29, at 8pm, head to Black Cat for all-ages punk rock karaoke benefiting local anarchist outfit Food Not Bombs, which serves vegan meals every Saturday in McPherson Square. Tickets cost $15 in advance or $20 at the door. Please RSVP.

On August 29th at 8:30 AM, at Madhatter Restaurant (1319 Connecticut Ave NW, one block from Dupont Circle Metro), join the DC Environmental Network, No Billionaire's Playground Coalition, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Sierra Club DC Chapter, and others for a special breakfast discussion on the RFK Stadium deal.

Courtwatch DC is a growing DC-based program that provides the space and training for the community to observe local court proceedings in the District of Columbia and document our city’s policies in action and to hold judicial actors accountable for injustice in the court system.

Courtwatch DC is powered by Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, with support from DC Justice Lab, and DC IWOC and was founded and led by formerly incarcerated Black women.

Courtwatching is a form of mutual aid. Inspired by Courtwatch PG, we strive to ensure that our community of Courtwatchers is multigenerational, multiracial, anti-racist, and moving towards an abolitionist future.

We are excited to share that our next orientation for new solidarity organizers will be on Thursday, August 28th, from 7-8 pm on Zoom. Solidarity organizers are those of us who support the work of Baldwin House but will not be tenant-owners living on site.We will give a brief overview of Baldwin House and what we're working on, share ways to get involved, and begin getting folks plugged in.

You can register for the orientation here! If you can't make it but want to be notified about future orientations, please complete this interest form.

It doesn’t matter how much or how little financial or retirement planning you’ve done. With the Retirewise® workshops, there’s something for everyone to learn.

When you attend, you can expect to learn about: Building the foundation. Financial basics, budgeting, and the importance of tax diversification. Establishing your retirement income stream. Investment risk and strategies, managing retirement expenses, and identifying potential sources of retirement income. Creating and managing wealth. Structuring a retirement income stream to address your retirement wants and needs, examining risks and how to manage assets to provide income. Making the most of what you have. Maximizing your employer's benefits, estate planning needs, and understanding Social Security and Medicare options that fit into your own financial and retirement plan.

Workers make DC run, and we deserve better than mass firings, union busting, deportations, and occupation.

Workers across the DC region need to be in solidarity with one another now more than ever before. On Thursday August 28, join us to kick off Labor Day 2025 and solidarity season with a rally and march.

We know a working-class united can never be defeated. We are organizing not just for one day, but to build labor power across the District, on every shop floor, school, restaurant, and municipal and federal building.

Join the Repro Justice campaign as we meet to discuss our upcoming events, actions, and more. We will be going over our campaign, how you can get involved! RSVP for the zoom link.

Reach out to bawg@mdcdsa.org with any questions.

"Abolition is about presence, not absence." — Ruth Wilson Gilmore

In this Abolition 102 training, we’ll dive into the practice of abolition. Together, we’ll explore how harmful institutions—like prisons and policing—haven’t been abolished, but reshaped and rebranded. We’ll walk through the timeline of these transformations and unpack why simply tearing systems down isn’t enough.

Abolition is not a finish line. It’s not complete once police and prisons are gone, it’s fulfilled when we’ve built the life-affirming infrastructure that makes punishment obsolete. We’ll ground in abolitionist organizing principles, reflect and dream collectively about what comes next.

This space is for those ready to grapple with the “what now?” and get serious about building the world we deserve.

Join us every Tuesday night for a lively, no-stress session where we’ll practice your 4th & 5th Amendment protections, from traffic stops to front-door chats with police or immigration enforcement at the workplace. Whether you're a citizen or not, these rights protect us all—and the best part? You can easily share what you learn with co-workers, neighbors, and friends to help everyone be informed of their rights! Come sharp, stay safe, and leave feeling confident!

Note: this is a public event! If you are not comfortable or do not feel safe attending a public virtual event (or you know someone who doesn’t feel comfortable), please email or signal Hannah for a personalized presentation in English or Spanish.

Links to the CARECEN Know Your Rights Presentation PDFs (English, Spanish)

Free DC is setting out to build the cultural and political power it will take to protect Home Rule and win lasting dignity for the people of DC.

Campaign Orientation is the place to learn about the attacks DC is facing right now, our strategy to defeat them, and our organizing structures that will make it possible.

Register at the button below to attend our Campaign Orientation on Tuesday, August 26th at 6:30pm on Zoom.

This is an information session, not a training. This session will help you understand if you want to attend our three-session 101: Foundational Skills of Deep Canvassing training.

Are you an organizer, community leader, or activist looking to engage with your community around deeply polarizing issues? Are you an individual hoping to understand how to have compassionate, non-judgmental conversations across lines of difference? Or, are you someone who’s heard about this thing called “deep canvassing” and you’re curious to learn more?

Join The Deep Canvass Institute on Tuesday, March 25 from 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. ET for a virtual information session to learn more about deep canvassing; what it is, how it’s used and why it works. This is an info session, not a training.

This information session will cover the core components of deep canvassing and help you decide if our three-session “Deep Canvass Institute 101: How to Have a Deep Canvass Conversation” is for you.

You'll have the opportunity to register for this no-cost training after the information session.

Deep canvassing was developed by organizers and volunteers in the LGBTQ rights movement as a way to turn the tide of a decade of losses around marriage equality. It has since become the one of the only tactics scientifically proven to be able to lastingly reduce prejudice, inoculate people against fear-based messaging, and change hearts and minds on our most divisive issues like immigration, climate change, transgender justice, abortion, voting rights, and more.

When we take this approach, people’s experience leads them away from prejudice, stigma, or fear, and towards empathy and a willingness to consider equitable solutions.

Deep canvassing is featured in the book “How to Change Minds: The New Science of Belief, Opinion and Persuasion” by David McRaney, writer for the Atlantic and Psychology Today. It is also featured in the book “The Persuaders: At The Front Line Of The Fight For Hearts, Minds And Democracy” by New York Times best-selling author, Anand Giridharadas.

The Deep Canvass Institute is a training program created in collaboration between New Conversation Institute and People's Action Institute. This training is non-partisan. We will not discuss or take questions on deep canvassing in the context of candidate elections or parties.

Join us to explore a radical reimagining of aging and race in America

Aging in America is not a race-neutral experience. Firmly entrenched disadvantages compound over a lifetime, making Black aging a unique and urgent issue. Yet, Black elders don't just survive-they build. Their fortitude has shaped families, communities, and movements for generations.

Drawing on lived experiences, cultural knowledge, and groundbreaking insights, Raymond A. Jetson illuminates the power of Black elders. He dismantles toxic narratives about Black aging and offers a transformative vision-one rooted in the strength of community, digital empowerment, and intergenerational connection. As the founder of Aging While Black and an AARP Purpose Prize winner, he confronts the realities of ageism and racial inequalities while charting a new path-one that embraces innovation, connection, and the radical possibilities of a future where Black elders are valued, empowered, and celebrated.

Aging While Black is an action guide for change, inviting readers to disrupt the established order, build powerful connections, and boldly imagine a future where Black elders reach full potential and their guidance shapes a more inclusive and just society for generations to come.

This is the bi-weekly meeting of Metro DC DSA's Trans/Queer Liberation Campaign. RSVP to receive the Zoom link and join us to discuss ongoing efforts such as Project Sanctuary, our Gender & Name Change Clinics, and more!

Reach out to bawg@mdcdsa.org with any questions.

One of the ways this foundational history enters our memories is through the classroom. That is why we are delighted that How the Word Is Passed will be available in a young readers edition, adapted by Sonja Cherry-Paul. Join us online for a book launch on Monday, August 25 at 7pm ET of How the Word Is Passed: Remembering Slavery and How It Shaped America. Smith will be in conversation with Rethinking Schools editor Jesse Hagopian and educator and Prentiss Charney Fellow Jessica Rucker.

Join our drop in safe space for youth to have supper and build community during the federal takeover. We’re open every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday August 25 - September 12.

Join us for a Baldwin Baddies happy hour On August 24th 5-6:30 PM at Baldwin House (2572 Sherman Ave NW) with a focus on Mutual Aid History. Baldwin House organizer Gabrielle will share histories of mutual aid organizing in DC, and Veronica, Baldwin House tenant-steward and co-founder of Seeding Stories / Sembrando Historias will share about mutual aid today and the importance of storytelling and narrative work for collective power building.

House cocktail provided and BYOB. We hope to see you there!

SAVE THE DATE for the annual Social Justice Curriculum Fair on Saturday, August 23, 2025 from 9:15AM–12:45PM in person at Inspired Teaching Demonstration PCS (200 Douglas Street NE).

This fair is an opportunity for D.C. area educators to connect in person while exploring curriculum aligned with various social justice themes. Coordinated in partnership with DCAESJ working groups, this fair will feature classroom resources from the Zinn Education Project and Social Justice Books, and is designed for pre-K-12 educators. There will also be opportunities to network with D.C. area education organizations at exhibit tables.

ALL attendees will receive professional development credits. Read about our 2024 Social Justice Curriculum Fair.

It doesn’t matter how much or how little financial or retirement planning you’ve done. With the Retirewise® workshops, there’s something for everyone to learn.

When you attend, you can expect to learn about: Building the foundation. Financial basics, budgeting, and the importance of tax diversification. Establishing your retirement income stream. Investment risk and strategies, managing retirement expenses, and identifying potential sources of retirement income. Creating and managing wealth. Structuring a retirement income stream to address your retirement wants and needs, examining risks and how to manage assets to provide income. Making the most of what you have. Maximizing your employer's benefits, estate planning needs, and understanding Social Security and Medicare options that fit into your own financial and retirement plan.

Join us for a snapshot of the work Harriet’s Wildest Dreams is engaged in. Our liberation is tied to one another and we need each other to do this work to protect our people — Black people, formerly incarcerated folks, queer and trans communities, and all those at risk of state sanctioned violence.

Being in the nation's capital we are at the center of the empire and also a target for far right extremists. DC is NO ONE’s playground and we must remain vigilant in our fight for statehood, our fight against mass incarceration and the fight for gender liberation and bodily autonomy for all.

If you and your friends are interested in building a better world, free from patriarchal violence, a world where queer is in, then you've come to the right place! Come sit with us as we re-imagine what this world can be and reclaim safety for all of DC.

Who Are We:

We are a Black-led abolitionist community defense hub centering all Black lives most at risk for state-sanctioned violence in the Greater Washington area.

What we do:

Our work includes legal empowerment, political and civic education, mass protest, organizing campaigns, and community care that builds alternatives to oppressive systems.

If you are in need of ASL interpretation please let us know at least 48 hours in advance.

This ‘Anti-Imperialist Summer School’ will consist of a series of teach-ins, held over the course of 6 weeks in May and June, which will provide a crash course in the shape and functioning of contemporary global imperialism.

The weekly sessions will take place Sundays from 4-6pm and run for approximately 90 minutes. All sessions will be hybrid—when you RSVP, scroll down on the confirmation page to get the Zoom link under “Instructions From Your Host”!

In the sixth and final session of of MDC DSA’s Beyond the Bombs: Anti-Imperialist Summer School teach-in series, we will turn our attention to the major global shifts currently underway—namely, the decline of U.S. hegemony, the rise of new superpowers like China, and the emergence of an increasingly multipolar world order—all of which are taking place amid accelerating political, economic, and ecological crises on numerous fronts. We will critically examine these shifts in detail, and open up space for a nuanced and critical discussion of the opportunities and contradictions that they offer the anti-imperialist left, as well as what our responsibility is as anti-imperialists when it comes to how we should understand and relate to these shifts.

NOTE: This event will be recorded and may be shared on MDC DSA’s social media platforms for educational purposes. By participating, you acknowledge that you may be videotaped and livestreamed. If you wish to avoid being recorded, you should take efforts to avoid appearing on camera or speaking.

Grab your bug spray and bring snacks to chill on the mall and literally touch grass as we discuss structural and historical dynamics that have shaped the constitutions into a barrier to the progression of democracy.

We will be reading an excerpt from Aziz Rana's hefty but fascinating book, Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them. One of three reading discussions we will host in July to explore different sections of Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document that Fails Them

Readers are welcome to come to drop into any discussion or come to all.

RSVP to get updates on the exact location, rain date plans, and where to find the readings.

Navigating Complexity in a Changing World

"The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion. What we have had recent occasion to say with respect to the vital importance of protecting this essential liberty from every sort of infringement need not be repeated.”  Supreme Court ruling, Lovell v City of Griffin (1938)

Changing technology throughout the history of the United States has raised new press freedom questions and introduced fresh challenges, with each generation developing its own tools and skills to navigate an increasingly complex information environment. In today’s digital world, where content is created constantly and technology evolves rapidly, protecting press freedom and finding trustworthy information feels tougher than ever. So, what comes next?

This moderated panel brings together distinguished journalists to explore the challenges press freedom is facing and the future of journalism. Joining the panel discussion will be Chris Wallace, the award-winning broadcast journalist whose past roles include CNN, Fox News and NBC, Tia Mitchell, the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Washington D.C. Bureau Chief, and Lori Montenegro, Noticias Telemundo’s Washington D.C. Bureau Chief. The discussion will be moderated by Poynter’s President, Neil Brown. 

6:00: Doors open for informal gathering, exhibit viewing and light refreshments
7:00: Panel discussion begins in the auditorium

Join us every Tuesday night for a lively, no-stress session where we’ll practice your 4th & 5th Amendment protections, from traffic stops to front-door chats with police or immigration enforcement at the workplace. Whether you're a citizen or not, these rights protect us all—and the best part? You can easily share what you learn with co-workers, neighbors, and friends to help everyone be informed of their rights! Come sharp, stay safe, and leave feeling confident!

Note: this is a public event! If you are not comfortable or do not feel safe attending a public virtual event (or you know someone who doesn’t feel comfortable), please email or signal Hannah for a personalized presentation in English or Spanish.

Links to the CARECEN Know Your Rights Presentation PDFs (English, Spanish)

Join MediaWise specialists in this class to help you build skills to tell fact from fiction in media.

In this interactive session, you’ll get a crash course in media literacy basics and proven techniques for spotting mis- and disinformation. Then, put your skills to the test with real-world examples — and walk away with practical tips for navigating tough conversations with loved ones who’ve fallen for false claims.

Courtwatch DC is a growing DC-based program that provides the space and training for the community to observe local court proceedings in the District of Columbia and document our city’s policies in action and to hold judicial actors accountable for injustice in the court system.

Courtwatch DC is powered by Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, with support from DC Justice Lab, and DC IWOC and was founded and led by formerly incarcerated Black women.

Courtwatching is a form of mutual aid. Inspired by Courtwatch PG, we strive to ensure that our community of Courtwatchers is multigenerational, multiracial, anti-racist, and moving towards an abolitionist future.

Can you find the facts, beat false information and escape?

Join MediaWise specialists from The Poynter Institute in an interactive escape room game, where you'll build news skills to help you tell fact from fiction. 

Teams work together to unlock a series of puzzles requiring them to evaluate news sources, identify misinformation, and detect digital manipulation techniques before time runs out. Use your mis- and disinformation busting skills to escape the misinfo-room.

This program will be held on the rooftop, weather permitting.

Join MediaWise specialists in this class to help you build skills to tell fact from fiction in media.

In this interactive session, you’ll get a crash course in media literacy basics and proven techniques for spotting mis- and disinformation. Then, put your skills to the test with real-world examples — and walk away with practical tips for navigating tough conversations with loved ones who’ve fallen for false claims.