Libero Della Piana
Libero Della Piana is the Senior Strategist at Alliance for a Just Society. He has extensive experience as a writer, editor, organizer, strategist, and movement educator. Previously he was the Digital Director and then Communications Director of People’s Action Institute. Libero became involved in student organizing in high school in Salt Lake City, Utah and was a youth organizer at DARE (Direct Action for Rights and Equality) in Providence, RI. Libero is a graduate of the Center for Third World Organizing’s Movement Activist Apprenticeship Program (MAAP) and its Community Partnership Program. As a Senior Research Associate at the Applied Research Center (now Race Forward), Libero worked as a researcher and trainer on racial justice issues in public schools and police issues. He received the Bannerman Fellowship for Young Activists of Color in 1997. He received the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition's Push for Excellence in Education Award in 2000. He lives in East Harlem, NY.
Presentations from Facing Race 2022
Democracy Is Under Attack. What Do We Do?: An Interactive Workshop
The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017. The rightwing assault on the U.S. capital on January 6, 2020. These are just three recent examples of how the extreme right has used violent confrontation to try to shift policy and public narrative. Political violence large and small is having an increased presence in our lives. Based on work done together with the Social and Economic Justice Leaders Project, Alliance for a Just Society has created an interactive scenario planning workshop session to help groups think about how to respond (and not respond) to right-wing provocations.
Presentations from Facing Race 2020
Strategic campaigns — advancing racial Justice
Racial justice strives for full liberation. How to get there from here is the question. This workshop will begin with a framework for evaluating and creating policy demands that advance racial justice. Participants will work together to assess how to build short-term
goals that build leadership and impact the lives of our members while marching down the path toward liberation.
Political Education that Advances Racial Justice
A critical role that community organizations play is to develop grassroots leaders and their capacity for racial justice analysis. This requires taking the time and space to examine the roots of racism in our society and to understand how it operates today. This
session will feature a political education module aimed at deepening an understanding of the formation and nature of systemic racism using the history of 17th Century Virginia. We will then discuss how this curriculum was used by community organizations in
practice.
Racial Justice Approaches to Community Organizing
This workshop will examine racial justice approaches to organizing and will engage participants through presentations and small group work. We will present the main framework of organizing and racial justice and examine the history of fo racial justice organizing.
We will discuss what makes organizing a unique and important approach to social change rooted in a theory of change based on an analysis of power.