Ventura, Turner, West, Williamson, Gravel, Glover, Dore, Knight to Speak at The People’s Party Convention
August 28, 2020
Contact:
media@peoplesparty.org
Detroit — Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, the actor, author, and former professional wrestler, will speak at The People’s Convention on August 30. He will join keynote speakers Sen. Nina Turner and Dr. Cornel West, former Democratic presidential candidates Marianne Williamson and Sen. Mike Gravel, and actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Danny Glover.
They will be joined by speakers from all walks of life, including students, labor leaders, a poet, nonprofit leaders, activists, former Democratic congressional candidates, and a climate scientist. Former Bernie 2020 staff, surrogates, delegates and organizers will be speaking.
Renowned comedians will perform live, including Graham Elwood, host of The Political Vigilante, and Ron Placone, host of Get Your News On With Ron. Host of Redacted Tonight, Lee Camp, will feature a clip from his newest Comedy Special, filmed at El Rey Theater in Los Angeles.
Leading independent media personalities Tim Black, host of The Tim Black Show, Niko House, host of Su Casa Es Mi Casa, and Jamarl Thomas, host of the Progressive Soapbox, will also speak. As will Chase Iron Eyes, co-founder of the Last Real Indians, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK, and Councilwoman Maebe A. Girl, the first drag queen elected to public office in the U.S.
More than 18,000 people have signed up and 32 speakers will attend. Due to overwhelming demand, The People’s Convention will be a half-day event, from 4 – 9:30 p.m. Eastern Time. The program will be a mix of live speakers, pre-recorded videos, montages of supporter testimony, comedy, poetry, music, a regional organizing presentation, and an intermission. It will broadcast live to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter pages with millions of followers, including The Jimmy Dore Show and its nearly 800,000 subscribers.
Speakers will discuss the state of the nation and forming a major new political party in America — a party free of corporate money and influence. Hosted by the Movement for a People’s Party, the convention will ask: What kind of world do we want to build from the devastation of this pandemic and economic depression?
At the conclusion of the program, participants will cast a historic vote to form a major new party on the People’s Party Mobile App: “Do we commit to forming a major new political party free of corporate money and influence in 2021?”
“I’m thrilled to be a part of the People’s Party Convention and for the opportunity to disband the dysfunctional two-party system that perpetuates corporate influence in American politics,” said Maebe A. Girl.
The People’s Convention comes in the wake of Democratic and Republican conventions that have erased poor people and dismissed overwhelming public support for desperately needed policies such as Medicare for all and a basic income. It comes as the nation faces a reckoning with police brutality and systemic racism in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and paralyzing of Jacob Blake. And it comes as Congress left Washington on vacation without renewing the expanded unemployment insurance lifeline and the evictions moratorium that was keeping millions from being thrown out of their homes.
“Four years from now, at the People’s Convention of 2024, when The People’s Party stands poised to win Congress and the Presidency, we will look back and celebrate this gathering as the moment that our nation turned the page on the Second Gilded Age and gave rise to a new Progressive Era,” said Nick Brana, National Coordinator with the Movement for a People’s Party.
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