VIRTUAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
VIRTUAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
March 4, 2026
Lessons from the Minnesota Resistance
with Ali Alowonle, Abaki Beck, Lena Gardner, Marika Pfefferkorn, and Lucid Thomas
This session will examine lessons, strategies and practical takeaways from the Minnesota Resistance. Our panel of community organizers, educators and clergy will place the events in MN within the broader national context of rising violence and threats and share best practices for people organizing resistance in their own cities.
VIRTUAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
VIRTUAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
January 15, 2026
Virtual with Brittany Ramos-Debarros, Alejandra Laprea, Samar Al-Bulushi, and Noah Schumacher
This session examined the attack on Venezuela, including the bombing of multiple sites in Caracas, as well as the U.S. Africa Command airstrikes in Nigeria. It also confronted how these same logics of militarism and racialized control operate domestically through immigration enforcement, mass detention, deportations, and the routine violence inflicted on migrants and our communities in the wake of the murder of Renee Nicole Good, acknowledging the harm and loss that has occurred while centering how people and communities organize, survive, and refuse to accept violence as inevitable.
RESOURCES
Pluto Press Behind Venezuela: An Anti-Imperialist Reading List
The Intercept article about the failures of AFRICOM and the dangers it has created for Africans on the continent
Black Muslim Refugee: Militarism, Policing and Somali American Resistance to State Violence
Stand with Minnesota Mutual Aid Resource List: Stand With Minnesota: Resource Hub
VIRTUAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
VIRTUAL OPEN UNIVERSITY
October 29, 2025
Virtual with Mahmoud Khalil, Dayo Gore, Mary Hooks
This session highlighted the major threats we face with the rise of authoritarianism facing our movement and communities including federal occupation of cities, targeting of immigrants, threats within higher education, and criminalization of dissent/protest. While the session explored the threats, it also focused on strategy and what courage can look like on and off campus.