Received an extremely sweet end of year message in the actual mail - from Kimmie David who illustrated my June article in @convergencemag.com (bit.ly/49h8BHc). ✨🌿🪐

Last year, my bf and I went to a townhall with this guy (squint and you'll see us top right) It was just after the election and we needed something positive to focus on. A smart, smiley socialist with an extremely long shot at the NYC mayoralty fit the bill. And here we are! 🗽 MAYOR MAMDANI 🗽

This year, I've been working on a project to explore how we can take a smarter, more ambitious and coordinated approach to funding how UK social leaders learn, build power and look after themselves along the way. Learn more: socialleadership.carrd.co

My mate @swajcmanearle.bsky.social wrote this excellent piece on the frightening rise of Farage. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/o...

"Silence has costs. It feeds the narrative that DEI was a fad...it gives oxygen to those who insist that the only way forward is to mute identity in favor of class, a dangerous bargain with a losing record." Another brilliant piece by @daxdev.bsky.social substack.com/home/post/p-...

Reform MP Sarah Pochin: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of Black people, full of Asian people, full of people that are basically anything other than White.” If the colour of someone else’s skin drives you ‘mad’, you are a Grade-A racist.

What a country. This should be on every front page. A national scandal. Britain 2024.

This headline was published in the Detroit Free Press in 1974. Stevie had been considering emigrating to escape American racial injustice. It took 50 years before his plan to come to fruition. He became a citizen of Ghana on May 13, 2024—his 74th birthday. lifeonsaturn.substack.com/p/stevies-ut...

On Saturn is an adventure into the future. Together, we’ll explore the projects and ideas that foretell the next world—one in which we are free of the tyranny of today. With beautiful illustrations by Ngadi Smart. lifeonsaturn.substack.com

“I feel like I'm seeing an ED transition email every other week…people are less willing to tough it out and be the martyr” I spoke to three leaders of colour who came up through the pandemic about where we find ourselves now. Read in @npquarterly.bsky.social nonprofitquarterly.org/after-the-up...

Women and people of color achieved meaningful gains in 2020, but now see dwindling support, political backlash, and persistent systemic challenges. Read more from @jackdgraham.bsky.social nonprofitquarterly.org/after-the-up... #leadership #nonprofits

“Struggle is par for the course when our dreams go into action. But unless we have the space to imagine and a vision of what it means fully to realize our humanity, all the protests and demonstrations in the world won’t bring about our liberation.” Robin D. G. Kelley

Ideas that germinate at the margins sometimes flourish in the centre ground. The Black Panthers didn’t win the revolution they were fighting for but they did win a small but important dignity for American kids: breakfast. 🍳 lifeonsaturn.substack.com/p/the-panthe...

“Showing Black and white people sitting at a lunch counter together was science fiction.” adrienne maree brown

Our first podcast episode is a conversation between our founder @jackdgraham.bsky.social and @joshbabarinde.bsky.social. Josh is a Year Here Fellow, an accomplished social entrepreneur, the first Black person elected to Parliament as a Lib Dem MP—and a survivor of domestic abuse. Listen now.

Many years ago @joshbabarinde.bsky.social told me about the domestic abuse that he and his family experienced as a kid. To hear the full extent of the abuse was heartbreaking. This sunny young man, beloved by his peers, had lived through some serious darkness.

Some of the highlights of @jackdgraham.bsky.social's interview with Wendy Kopp. Live now on How To Change Things: bit.ly/4kjbxqg

Wendy Kopp founded Teach For America in 1989 when she was just 21 years old. She raised $2.5 million and recruited 500 people to join the first cohort. BANANAS. I spoke with Wendy about facing the critics and learning lessons along the way.

This @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social video is absolutely INCREDIBLE. The numbers he cites, the strategy and results they produced — it’s the future. When have you heard *any* campaign talk about this, ever? (Video split in 2 to fit in Bluesky’s limits)

Before interviewing Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach For America, I wanted to hear out the haters. Were they right? Is TFA an elitist, union-busting, status quo-maintaining, neoliberal project? Here are the arguments:

And he still can’t say his name.

Trump is spoiling for a fight just like he did with BLM in 2020. The right to protest means sh!t to him. In @convergencemag.com, I highlight a project doing the critical frontline work to defend our rights—and protect ourselves. Support them at donorbox.org/peer-defense-project bit.ly/43Q6cAA

Doechii said: “I want you all to consider what kind of government it appears to be when every time we exercise our democratic right to protest, the military is deployed against us. What type of government is that?” And she spoke with more courage and moral clarity than most Dems can muster.

My new piece in @convergencemag.com was inspired by something @sifill.bsky.social said at the beginning of the year about the end of harvest times in America. As we face the horrific reality of 2025, we should emulate the leaders who weathered the storms of 2020. convergencemag.com/articles/tom...

A land without landlords? sounds good to me. Read the latest projection from 🪐 On Saturn 🪐 lifeonsaturn.substack.com/p/forever-home

This sums the whole situation up quite nicely.

I'm still mid-way through this book by my mate @lanre-bakare.bsky.social but it is excellent. Go pick up a copy of 'We Were There' now.

Trans women are still women.

"In 1910, 14% of farmers were Black; a century later it was 1.6%" In the light of precipitous Black land loss in rural America, the vision of Black Americans enjoying food sovereignty might seem light years away. But, at Soul Fire Farm, it's happening: lifeonsaturn.substack.com/p/a-million-...

Did you know that Andrew Cuomo gutted the pensions of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers?

Here's the round up from Crowdbacker last week – our first public event in three years. Pledging is open for our three ventures Ellescope, Solidarity Economy Toolkit and Tresacare. The next £10k in donations will be doubled – so get in there now! mailchi.mp/yearhere/cro...

New substack post about farming and food, soil and seeds, and Afro-Indigenous ancestral wisdom.

Saturn is a gorgeous utopian dream of a song from Stevie Wonder’s greatest album. lifeonsaturn.substack.com/p/stevies-ut...

I had a particular phrase in my head when Trump won the Presidency again. Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out what my ‘resistance’ should look like. This is my best answer.

I’ve launched a Substack to get us all prepared for the next world, where we are free of the tyranny of today. Come with me. 🪐

Just the most respect and admiration for @joshbabarinde.bsky.social today.

We Were There is on the cover of Guardian’s Saturday culture pages! It’s incredible to see Ellery Hanley, Nightmares on Wax, Empire Road and all the other figures from the book, assembled together and brought to life in print. Live dates, pre-order link and playlist: www.lanrebakare.com/events

Just 0.24% of venture funding goes to Black founders. This inequity exists in *social* entrepreneurship too. And it's not right. On April 2, Crowdbacker will boost the next generation of social entrepreneurs of colour. MC: @joshbabarinde.bsky.social Tickets: www.tickettailor.com/events/yearh...

Writing from @walktrey.bsky.social comin’ soon. Subscribe now!

Braverman should be driven out of public life for saying something as bigoted, conspiratorial, ridiculous, and dumb as this but she won’t be, of course, because anti-Muslim bigotry and Islamophobic fearmongering has been normalized in British public life.

And yet Farage’s stock price has never been higher? Might we be missing an open goal, Keir?

Labour’s complacency on this is frightening. Who are the people doing the serious organising needed to curb the rise of the populist right in the UK?

"People aren’t going to work and kids aren’t going to school. Yesterday about 25 percent of the workforce, today 75 percent didn’t show up.” Can you taste the absolute terror that must be coursing through the bodies of these people? newrepublic.com/post/190555/...

Sadly I think Owen is right. It’s the only conclusion Starmer and others leave us to make when they publish this kind of statement. How else are we to reconcile the fact that one people has suffered so much more human suffering than the other - yet receives nowhere near as much empathy?

New poll: 29% of voters who voted for Biden in 2020 but didn't for Harris in 2024 say Gaza was the top issue affecting their vote: 29% — Ending Israel’s violence in Gaza 24% — Economy 12% — Medicare & Social Security 11% — Immigration & border security 10% — Healthcare 9% — Abortion 5% — Don’t know

Just in case there was any remaining faith in the sincerity of corporate America’s DEI statements of the summer of 2020.

I know it's partly because re-reading the IICSA report quite as much over such a short space of time has made me miserable and fractious, but I am almost blind with rage at the people who visibly have not even bothered *still* to acquaint themselves with the inquiry they have decided is inadequate.

I'm working with @joshbabarinde.bsky.social to push the government to create a specific set of domestic violence aggravated offences in England and Wales. It's simple: if it was domestic abuse, name it in the offence. Back our @ukchange.bsky.social campaign to #NameDA

So true. ‘alternative facts’ feels quaint at this point. What’s the solution now that all the platforms are capitulating to MAGA? Mass media literacy training? It’ll have to be clandestine or we’ll get shut down. 😩

This is what a Year Here Fellow in Parliament looks like: courageous, compassionate and resolute. Keep fighting, @joshbabarinde.bsky.social. We are with you all the way.