Who We Are: History, Framework, and Origin Stories w/Denise Perry

The Rad Ops Podcast is one component of a dialogue-based tool that supports organizations assessing and discussing the possibilities and limitations of putting liberatory values into practice. Each guest will share their Rad Ops lineages, their expertise on today’s pressing operations questions and leave listeners with resources and discussion questions to take back to your teams.

In this origins episode, we flipped the script, and guest Denise Perry interviews co-hosts Yashna Maya Padamsee and Sha Grogan-Brown! 

Resources from this episode:

• Rad Ops Workbook
• Rad Ops Principles
• Rad Ops Resources Page
• Sanctuary Embodied for embodiment and somatics resources (like the centering activity within this episode) 

Discussion questions to take to your team:

• What lineages do you draw from in your operations work?
  • Who is a figure who you see as a political and/or operations ancestor? 
  • What is an event in history that you see as a pivotal moment of movement operations? Feel free to reach for the well-known figures and events, or (even better) the lesser known! 
• What Rad Ops principle do you resonate with the most, and why?
  • How often do you practice this principle in your work? What is one thing you could do to practice this principle more of the time?

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Produced by Josh Elstro with Convergence Magazine. Design support from Kimmie David. Music by Tigercat, Sha’s amazing 10-year-old, with polish by Josh.

Guest Speaker

Denise Perry has spent more than 35 years in labor and community organizing work, dedicated to developing strong grassroots leaders, democratic organizations, and progressive social movements. She co-founded Power U Center for Social Change, rooted in Miami’s historically Black community of Overtown in 1999. She has served on a variety of Boards to support the process and development of organizations. She currently is a Co-Director and co-founder of BOLD Training Institute which is developing Black leadership for transformative organizing and building Black power across the country.