Progressive Central 2024: A Huge Success
Huge Success With More To Come
While our party was gearing up for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, just a few blocks down the street from the United Center, Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) was at the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) holding its Progressive Central 2024. PDA was blessed to have our conference at the progressive CTU hall and we want to give a major shout-out to CTU president Stacy Davis Gates and her staff.
PDA progressive organizers joined with the Rainbow PUSH Coalition based in Chicago, the Arab American Institute, and The Nation to make this year’s event over the top exciting and productive. More than 50 speakers participated in panels on every issue dear to us working-class people from Arizona to Pennsylvania. We heard keynote speeches from Senator Bernie Sanders, Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, and the one and only orator, Ohio activist Nina Turner.
The two-day event was part of a PDA tradition every four years and in 2024 the conference saw panels that ranged from Left Progressive Politics – The Antidote to the crisis of American Democracy to War and Peace, Recasting our Foreign Policy. Other panels included critical issues like, Medicare for All, organized labor, reproductive freedom, the climate emergency, structural racism, immigration reform, the Rural New Deal, and the 20th Century Bill of Rights.
The amazing cast of speakers included guest appearances from, the impressive Rep. from Florida Maxwell Frost, Chicago area U.S. House Representatives Chuy Gacia, Delia Ramirez, Jonathan Jackson, and Danny Davis. Other speakers were Association of Flight Attendants Labor leader Sara Nelson, Buffalo activists India Walton, Immigration activist Erika Andiola, One Fair Wage president Saru Jayaraman, Food and Water Action’s Michelle Allen, and historian Harvey J. Kaye.
An urgent theme throughout the two days was bringing an end to the war and genocide in Gaza. Besides Senator Sanders, and Nina Turner panelist Representatives Jim Govern, Ro Khanna, Barabara Lee and PDA’s National Advisory Board Member Code Pink leader Medea Benjamin and the Arab American Institute’s Jim Zogby all make the plea to the Biden administration calling for a Cease-Fire and to end arms shipments to Israeli.
Certainly, the overriding topic during the two days, was the need to support Vice President Kamala Harris, defeat Donald Trump, and control Congress. The question on the table centered around after January 2025 how to thread the needle and put the new administration’s feet to the fire, compelling them to listen to the working-class issues discussed at the conference and turn them into effective legislation. Yes, for us substantive changes that will make our lives better. Politics Americans Want!
Alan Minsky, PDA’s National Director, added that “one would have to be naïve to believe that an incoming Democratic administration’s ready to go against all the power and money and wealth… on the right wing of the party and by the Republicans, but we have to make them see that that’s the way to create the society that Americans want to live in.”
Union leader Sara Nelson captured the room’s mood, “Using power builds power, and we will use our power,” Nelson said. “We are not just about access politics in this room. We are about using power to make our world better for the people.”
And join us on the Sunday Town Hall as we do a deep debrief and outline steps forward.
In solidarity,
Dan O’Neal for the PDA National Staff
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