Lessons Learned From Student Organizing with Akin Olla and Sean Estelle

The pre-Bernie era of the 2010s carried pros and cons for young Millennial activists building left movements. There was less organization and directed skill than these efforts carry now—but there was an exciting energy of hope and possibility some compare to the student movements of the 1960s. In this episode, William is joined by two veterans of that era's student organizing movements to discuss the importance and opportunity of progressive organizing power in the fertile, energetic landscape of campus politics. He talks with Akin Olla, national press secretary for Dream Defenders and a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Guardian and The Forge, and Sean Estelle, a longtime organizer and former elected member of the National Political Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America. They dig deep into those years, talking about—among other things—how unorthodox tactics like moving your mattress in to occupy a campus library or unlikely alliances between stoners and sororities might still build power from the bottom up.