Resources
Song is an important part of Wildfire workshops. We love to invite groups to share their own songs, and draw on our movement lineages. We also write freedom songs together that we sing in workshops. We wanted to share them here so you can use them in your own gatherings, actions, and workshops.
These songs were co-written by Wildfire team members Lu Aya Nephew & The Peace Poets, Deirdre Shabaaz Smith, and Lex Barlowe.
Sing them!
1. We Are Not Afraid
2. Deep In The Darkness
3. You Can’t Hide From Freedom
4. Do You Heal (We Got All Our Medicine)
5. I believe
6. Wake Up Warriors
Loam Listen –
BJ Star and Joshua Kahn Russell on The Practice of Surrender
Released: March 2020. Genre: audio interview.
For The Wild –
The Wildfire Project Staff on Transforming Toxic Movement Culture
Released: March 2019. Genre: audio interview.
Who We Are, 2018
Wildfire’s Six Elements, 2018
Wildfire’s Winter Camp, 2016
The Wildfire Project, 2015
Article: Healthy Group Accountability – Learning How to Learn
Our contribution to Organizing Upgrade‘s series on Organizational Culture. While many activists talk about “accountability” in terms of repair when harm is caused, here we share lessons on a different type of accountability: the way a group as a whole follows through on its expectations, responsibilities, and commitments. Many of the groups we work with struggle when they need to respond to a plan breaking down, or to someone breaking their word. We share a few key interventions on this pattern and distill some frameworks for you to apply in your own group.
By Michael Strom & Joshua Kahn Russell, The Wildfire Project.
Organizing Upgrade, August 6, 2021
Conflict Culture Assessment Tool
Support a collective understanding of your group’s culture around 10 aspects of conflict, and practice the skill of collective assessment.
Feedback Circles Tool
Invest in one another’s leadership. Practice a method for giving and receiving direct, honest feedback. Support each other’s growth horizontally, outside of usual ‘management’ lines. Surface growth barriers folks might be unaware of. Offer affirmation and admiration. Strengthen the group.
Article: Spectrum of Allies
A lens for social movement strategy.
By Joshua Kahn Russell, The Wildfire Project.
Beautiful Trouble, O/R Books 2012
Article: 4 Key Ways to Build Strong Social Justice Movements
Give feedback that is growth-oriented. Don’t shy away from conflict and tension. Work on your strategy. Practice (and create structures to help you practice).
By Yotam Marom, The Wildfire Project.
Teen Vogue, Sept 10, 2020
This article is for a general audience of new activists.
Article: Moving Toward Conflict for the Sake of Good Strategy
The Wildfire Project supports generative conflict within organizations, which we define as conflict that elicits more possibilities, greater connection, and fuller expression.
By Yotam Marom, The Wildfire Project.
Medium.com, Jan 13, 2020
This article is for facilitators and practitioners.
Lessons From Practice: 2022
Each year we draft some internal lessons from the field. A lot of it is insider-facilitator-speak, but we like to share it with our community and peers about the edges we’re working and insights we think might be helpful to other facilitators, organizers, and healers.
