Deepening our organizing locally, impacting the movement nationally

Over the past eight years, Philly Socialists has become a fixture of our city, where we’ve remained at the forefront of radical politics. Many residents know us for the good work we do in their communities: we’ve organized to protect the rights of tenants, cultivated crops along with our neighbors at our community garden, and protested in defense of our immigrant friends and neighbors. We’re widely recognized for our an uncompromising adherence to our values, and a pragmatic and principled approach to political practice.

Socialism has become the defining politics of our generation. Almost overnight, a movement has sprung up embracing tens of thousands. As a pace-setting organization in the socialist relm, Philly Socialists has had an outsized influence for a small activist group situated in a single city. In the coming year we plan on having an even greater impact continuing our citywide efforts and by founding an organizing school to teach activists from across the country how to build independent people power.





We're proud of what we've accomplished with your support

Since the begining , we’ve been up front with our supporters that without your help, we’d never be able to achieve our ambitious goals. But you’ve always believed in us, and in return we’ve always kept our promises.

This past year has been no exception. Last summer, our immigrants rights working group convened a coalition to occupy Philadelphia’s ICE headquarters; hundreds turned out and put their bodies on the line to oppose the inhumane policy of family separation. The coalition we initiated launched a nonviolent mass protest which successfully pressured the Mayor to end our city’s data-sharing agreement with ICE, making life safer for our immigrant friends and neighbors, and getting us one step closer to our dream of making Philadelphia a true sanctuary city.

Photo from the march before the occupation began.

With your help, we founded the Philadelphia Tenants Union, an independent mass organization for renters that is a major player in the struggle for affordable housing. This organization supports renters in distress, helping them organize against unfair evictions and stolen security deposits, among other concerns. In January, we helped pass Good Cause eviction protections for month-to-month renters, and have now begun the push the push for citywide rent control.

Looking onward to our next big fight, citywide rent control.

One of our comrades at one of the final city council hearings concerning Good Cause.

Last year we told you we would be branching out into labor and workplace organizing with the establishment of a worker center project. True to our word, we founded Dignity, an organization of workers. We’ve just started to scratch the surface on organizing workers to fight back against unjust policies and bad bosses. Our efforts will continue with tabling at public transportation stops and talking to people all over the city about their experiences at work.

Photo from a recent Dignity and documentary viewing. (I can't wait to post a photo that has YOU at the next one!)

Our community garden has expanded greatly in the last year. With the active support of neighborhood residents, we’ve been able to protect this land from developers. Since it’s peak growing season, we have been busy planting corn, tomatoes, broccoli, and celery. There’s more coming all the time, and it’s here for the community to enjoy. The garden has become an important community space, and very month it seems our neighbors are hosting some event there, from clean-ups to cookouts.

A couple of adorable kids tending to our garden with us on one of our recent workdays!





Many immigrants who come to this country work hard, but face discrimination and have difficulty getting ahead. One way Philly Socialists has shown solidarity with the immigrant community has been by holding free English classes, which we have done continuously for nearly ten years. Our West Philly English as a second language class has expanded dramatically and in the last year we’ve expanded our efforts to a new neighborhood, South Philly. We’re currently holding three classes a week two in West Philly, one in South!

Some of our ESL teachers with one of our West Philly ESL Class atttendees.

Another important project we run is The Partisan, a quarterly journal documenting happenings all over the city. Hundreds of copies of this newsletter are written, edited, and distributed by a dedicated team of volunteers, to satisfy an eager readership located all around the city. Our readers look to The Partisan to provide incisive analysis of local issues and political perspectives that can’t be found in the mainstream media. Our latest issue focuses on housing issues, and pairs well with the sorts of struggles the tenants union has been taking on.

One of this years issues of the Philadelphia Partisan.

This year our student groups flourished. Drexel Socialists started there very own tenants union to take on issues with the company that provides university-sponsored housing. In the last year they’ve taken on a couple of good fights and even won. At our yearly convention, we elected an experienced student activist into the new role of Campus Coordinator, with the intention of expanding our reach on campuses in Philadelphia and the surrounding area.

Drexel Socialists tabling at a student activites fair.

Our student groups protesting a landlord downtown.

The national network Philly Socialists helped to create, the Marxist Center, has grown exponentially over the past year. In December, we held our founding convention in Colorado Springs, attended by two hundred delegates from activist groups across the country. This new national organization now boasts over twenty affiliate organizations around the US and over five hundred individual members. In July we will be opening up at-large membership, and we expect the network will really take off then! Philly Socialist contingent from the Marxist Center conference this past winter.

Looking Ahead:

To achieve our goals over the coming year, we are asking you to donate to the cause: please consider making as large a contribution as you’re comfortably able to! Every dollar counts, and no contribution is to small. Everything gets us closer to our goal!

Here’s what we have planned if we reach our fundraising goals:

As we continue expanding our national network, we’re excited to share the lessons we’ve learned locally with others. That’s why we voted to establish an Organizer’s School next year. With your support, we will bring activists from around the country to study political theory, learn organizing skills, and get hands-on experience in base-building.

We also plan to host another Marxist Center conference. Our 2018 conference led to the establishment of a robust and active national group with fledgling chapters spread throughout the continental United States. A successful fundraising campaign now will allow us to improve and expand these efforts, which we believe could provide much-needed support to organizers across the US.

And of course, we will continue to deepen our on the ground efforts here in Philadelphia by continuing to nourish our projects. Thank you for choosing to support us, thank you for helping us get this far.

With love and solidarity always,

Philly Socialists <3









