Mentorship and Collective Liberation: A Conversation with Clare Bayard

Join us for a wide ranging conversation with Clare Bayard where we discuss her 20+ years of organizing in grassroots multiracial struggles for collective liberation, and the role of somatic healing work and the importance of mentorship for intergenerational movements of resistance. Content warning: interview includes mention of sexual trauma and white nationalism.

Topics we discuss include:

• The space between impact and intention.
• Healing for the sake of being able to show up in work for collective liberation.
• How anti-racist work has evolved over the years.
• The role of mentorship in movement building. Mentorship as a bidirectional relationship.
• Community safety work - alternatives to police, transformative justice, grassroots neighborhood organizing. Concrete suggestions on how we prepare for the wave of increased state repression that is coming.
• Security as solidarity.

About Clare Bayard:

Clare Bayard has organized for over 20 years in grassroots multiracial movements for collective liberation, and co-founded Catalyst Project, a movement building center supporting white anti-racist organizing. Clare is an organizer and a parent, a direct action trainer with The Ruckus Society, a writer, and a somatic healing practitioner who focuses on working with survivors of sexual assault and war. Clare's training comes from coalition and campaign work in many movement sectors, particularly in migrant rights, global justice, housing rights and anti-displacement, Palestinian liberation, anti-imperialist struggles against US wars and G.I. resistance, post-Katrina Gulf Coast Reconstruction, and climate justice. Demilitarization and connecting struggles against US empire at home and abroad are at the heart of Clare’s political work. Clare is active in the War Resisters International Network, served in board and staff positions at the War Resisters League for over a decade, and has worked closely with About Face (formerly known as Iraq Veterans Against the War) since soon after its founding.Clare’s writing has been published widely including the Guardian UK, Z Magazine, Alternet, Common Dreams, The Hill, and the recent anthology We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st century America.

Find Clare online:

• Catalyst Project: collectiveliberation.org
• Clare’s writing: https://healingandjustice.wordpress.com/

Links to relevant resources:

• War at Home book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/927659.War_at_Home
• A Troublemaker’s Guide: Principles for Racial Justice Activists in the Face of State Repression: https://tinyurl.com/y9kxhom4
• Catalyst Project: www.collectiveliberation.org
• GI Rights hotline: https://girightshotline.org/
• About Face’s Open Letter from Veterans to Recently Activated National Guard: https://medium.com/@VetsAboutFace/minnesota-national-guard-stand-down-for-black-lives-7596e1f0493b
• Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ): https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/
• Anti Police-Terror Project: https://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/
• Ruckus Society: www.ruckus.org
• Bay Area Solidarity Statement: https://couragetoresist.org/solidarity2020/

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