Episode 15: Lauren Jacobs

Black Work Talk

In this fifteenth episode of Black Work Talk, our guest is Lauren Jacobs. Lauren is the Executive Director of the Partnership for Working Families – a national network of regional power-building organizations. Lauren and I have been friends for over 15 years…I remember when she was a union organizer in Boston. I have always loved the way Lauren combines things: race and class…theory and practice. That nuanced and rooted way of engaging the world is key at building real power to transform the world.

We had a wide-ranging conversation on a variety of topics including:

• Working with unreliable partners in the united front against authoritarianism
• The importance of working with everyday people to building the capacity to see themselves as social change agents
• The intertwined nature of race and class

For more background on Lauren Jacobs and her work, here are links:

https://www.forworkingfamilies.org/

https://forgeorganizing.org/article/building-united-front-against-authoritarianism

https://forgeorganizing.org/article/organizing-economy-we-want

And during the podcast, Lauren mentioned an important article by Stuart Hall, “Gramsci and Us”:

http://www.banmarchive.org.uk/collections/mt/pdf/87_06_16.pdf