That’s a wrap: The Democracy Defenders Roadshow

That’s a wrap!

After 14 stops across 11 states, the Democracy Defenders Roadshow has officially come to a close.

Our final stretch took us to Chapel Hill, NC; Atlanta, GA; and Dalton, GA.

In Chapel Hill, with the support of LILA Latinx LGBTQI, Ernesto Ledesma, Lucía Vijil, and Elena Gutiérrez joined grassroots Latinx leaders, local media, and community members to explore how U.S. policies affect migration, violence, and democratic stability across borders and why democracy must be sustained through community-building and organizing beyond the ballot box. Enlace Latino NC covered the gathering, highlighting the many ways immigrant community members can make their voices heard, regardless of their ability to vote.

After carrying these conversations to Atlanta, we concluded in Dalton with the Coalición de Líderes Latinos (CLILA) and the Coalición de Federaciones Mexicanas en el Exterior (COLEFOM). Latino community members, particularly Mexican workers, shared how they are organizing against ICE enforcement and for labor rights, voting access, and representation, while building strong mutual-aid networks that provide English classes, citizenship support, childcare, and other essential community resources.

What we learned across the country

From St. Paul, Chicago, Kalamazoo, South Bend, and Louisville to the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, California, North Carolina, and Georgia, our Democracy Defenders met with students, journalists, labor organizers, elected officials, immigrants, faith leaders, human rights defenders, and community members. Each stop reflected a distinct local reality, but the same lessons resurfaced across the country.

Democracy takes many forms across the Americas and it is powered by people. Across the Roadshow, we heard different understandings of what democracy means and what it requires in different communities. But one idea surfaced again and again: democracy is not only something that happens at the ballot box or inside formal institutions. It is built between elections, through people-powered movements, neighborhood organizing, community meetings, mutual aid, and collective action. In Louisville, participants emphasized that democracy lives in neighborhoods and local institutions. In Sacramento, we heard that community itself can become the nucleus of democracy. In Dalton, mutual-aid networks showed what this looks like in practice: neighbors helping one another learn English, prepare for citizenship, care for their families, and participate in public life.

Trustworthy information is essential to democratic power. Journalists in Chico described the difficulty of producing reliable local reporting while misinformation spreads rapidly. Participants reinforced throughout the Roadshow that documenting what is happening, both locally and internationally, is necessary for communities to understand the forces shaping their lives and hold those in power accountable.

Our struggles are connected across borders. From conversations about migration in Philadelphia and Chapel Hill to discussions of reparations in Chicago and political repression in South Bend and New York, participants traced how violence, authoritarianism, economic injustice, and U.S. policy connect communities throughout the Americas.

Perhaps the Roadshow’s clearest lesson was that democracy cannot depend on institutions repairing themselves. It depends on people willing to investigate, organize, share knowledge, care for one another, and build the trust necessary for collective action.

The Roadshow may be over, but the relationships it strengthened and the conversations it began are not. This work now continues at the Binational Peace Summit, where hundreds of organizations, community leaders, and advocates from Mexico and the United States, including people from many of the communities we met along the Roadshow, will come together to examine the root causes of violence and explore how we can build peace with justice across borders.

Thank you to every speaker, host organization, partner, student, journalist, organizer, volunteer, and participant who made this extraordinary journey possible.

Across different cities and different struggles, we are part of the same resistance and none of us has to face it alone.

Follow @globalexchange to stay updated on the Binational Peace Summit and the work ahead.

Our latest stretch brought the Roadshow to Northern California, where journalists, organizers, elected officials, students, and community members came together for conversations about press freedom, disinformation, institutional trust, organizing under pressure, and what it takes to build durable democratic power.

We began in Chico, in a beautiful and fitting setting: the historic Bidwell Bowl Amphitheater overlooking Big Chico Creek. Local organizations including Chico Peace Alliance, Indivisible Chico, Chico Democratic Socialists of America, and NorCal Resist joined us, bringing together members of the local Defenders of Democracy Coalition. Chico City Councilmember Addison Winslow welcomed the crowd, and Catalina Sanches, the first Latina councilwoman in the nearby town of Gridely, moderated our opening conversation on Journalism at Risk.

Local journalists from ChicoSol and the Chico Enterpris-Record spoke candidly about the challenges of producing trustworthy local journalism with limited resources while competing with an ever-growing ecosystem of misinformation. Their conversation raised questions that have followed us throughout this Roadshow: How do people know what to trust? What responsibility does journalism have when confidence in public institutions is declining? And how can reporters rebuild trust without simply becoming advocates for those institutions?

Afterward, around 70 participants shared lunch together at Chico State, where local organizations hosted a small democracy fair and attendees had a chance to meet, exchange ideas, and learn more about organizing happening in the region.

The afternoon turned toward lessons from Latin America.

Our Roadshow speakers brought their own experiences confronting corruption, disinformation, weakened institutions, and threats to democratic participation. Ernesto Ledesma spoke about building independent investigative journalism through Rompeviento TV and the risks journalists face when official sources themselves cannot always be trusted. Omar Trejo reflected on his experience working as a special prosecutor on the case of the 43 disappeared Ayotzinapa students in Mexico and the institutional barriers he encountered as evidence pointed toward military involvement.

Mynor Alonzo shared another side of the story: what becomes possible when people organize. Drawing from his experience with FOCO and Guatemala’s recent political history, he described how years of corruption and declining civic participation were interrupted by an explosion of student-led protest and renewed public engagement.

The stories were different, but the thread connecting them was clear: democracy cannot depend on institutions repairing themselves. It requires people who are willing to investigate, organize, document what is happening, and build enough collective power to demand accountability.

The Chico program ended with local organizations sharing their own work and the room joining together in chants of “The people united will never be divided” and “El pueblo unido jamás será vencido.”

From Chico, the Roadshow continued to Sacramento, where we gathered at the Communications Workers of America union hall.

Rather than beginning with a traditional panel, each Roadshow speaker had time to tell the story of what brought them into this work. The conversation quickly moved toward a fundamental question: What do we actually mean when we talk about democracy, and how do we distinguish democratic culture from authoritarianism?

Mynor reminded the group that democracy is ultimately built through community. Just as the family can be a nucleus of social life, he argued, community can become the nucleus of democracy. At a time when social-media algorithms increasingly shape what people see, care about, and engage with, rebuilding democratic life means creating real relationships and communities strong enough to compete with those forces.

Ernesto returned to the importance of documentation. Investigative journalism, he argued, requires us not simply to put personalities or influencers at the center of the story, but to document what is actually happening on the ground, in our communities and internationally.

And the Sacramento gathering itself reflected the diversity of organizing across Northern California. Participants included people who had traveled from El Dorado County, candidates organizing in the deeply conservative community of Paradise, a longtime Sacramento DSA organizer, and people connected to the California Trade Justice Coalition.

Across these California gatherings, one message kept resurfacing: democracy is not simply something we inherit or something institutions preserve for us. It is something people create together.

It is built through local journalism that keeps communities informed. Through organizers willing to work in places where organizing is difficult. Through people documenting abuses that others would prefer remain unseen. And through the relationships that make collective action possible in the first place.

That is exactly what the Democracy Defenders Roadshow is trying to strengthen: connections across movements, communities, and borders so that people confronting authoritarianism and democratic erosion do not have to do that work alone.

The Roadshow continues from here to North Carolina and Georgia, carrying the stories, strategies, and relationships built in the Midwest, East Coast and California into our next stops.

You can learn more about the roadshow, speakers, and upcoming events here and make sure to follow us on social media @globalexchange for updates and footage from the events.

What a week.

The Democracy Defenders Roadshow has just wrapped up an incredible East Coast tour, bringing together close to 500 people across Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York City for four powerful conversations on democracy, human rights, and international solidarity.

Over the course of five days, we met with high school students, university students, migrant communities, and longtime activists, each bringing their own experiences, questions, and perspectives. While every event was different, one thing remained constant: people are hungry for honest conversations about what democracy looks like in practice and how we can defend it together.

We began in Philadelphia, where the Philadelphia Ethical Society welcomed a full room of community members eager to engage with perspectives from Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico. Audience members drew connections between democratic backsliding in the United States and across Latin America, asking thoughtful questions about foreign policy, social movements, and the role ordinary people play in defending democratic institutions. The evening set the tone for the rest of the tour: honest, nuanced conversations grounded in shared values and lived experience.

One of the most inspiring parts of the week came during our two New Jersey stops, where we met with both high school and university students through partnerships with Groundwork Elizabeth, the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Rather than simply listening, students actively wrestled with big questions: Is democracy more than elections? Can people who fundamentally disagree still build democratic societies? How do history, identity, and lived experience shape the way we understand justice? They reflected on the importance of listening across differences, recognized that every community contains a diversity of perspectives, and spoke about the need to resist reducing people to simplistic labels.

Many shared that hearing firsthand from our speakers expanded their understanding of democracy beyond the U.S. context and helped them see how struggles for peace, human rights, Indigenous sovereignty, and civic participation are deeply interconnected across borders. Their curiosity, openness, and willingness to engage gave us tremendous hope for the next generation of democratic leaders.

The East Coast tour concluded with our largest event at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, where approximately 200 people gathered for an evening moderated by Steven Donziger and featuring Chris Hedges alongside our Democracy Defenders from Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico. The conversation explored the rise of authoritarianism around the world, the impact of U.S. foreign policy throughout Latin America, organized crime and migration, peace-building, sovereignty, and the urgent need to strengthen democratic institutions before they are further eroded. The discussion was both deeply rooted in the lived experiences of our speakers and remarkably relevant to challenges communities are facing here in the United States.

Across every stop, our Democracy Defenders reminded audiences that democracy is much more than elections. Through stories from Guatemala, Colombia, and Mexico, they showed how democracy is built every day through community organizing, defending human rights, protecting Indigenous territories, advocating for peace, confronting corruption, and creating spaces where ordinary people can participate in decisions that affect their lives. They challenged audiences to think beyond borders, recognizing that many of the forces threatening democracy today, from growing inequality and concentrated political power to violence and attacks on civil society, are deeply interconnected.

Perhaps most inspiring was what happened after the formal programs ended. Conversations spilled into hallways, over shared meals, and in small groups that lingered long after the events concluded. Students exchanged contact information with organizers. Community members asked how they could get involved. New relationships formed between people who, just hours earlier, had never met. These moments of genuine connection are exactly what the Democracy Defenders Roadshow was created to foster.

To everyone who attended, hosted, volunteered, interpreted, organized, and helped spread the word: thank you. Your energy, curiosity, and commitment made this stretch of the Roadshow an extraordinary success.

The conversations don’t end here. As the Roadshow continues with upcoming stops in California, we’ll keep building bridges across communities and borders, creating spaces where people can learn from one another and strengthen the movements working to defend democracy throughout the Americas.

You can learn more about the roadshow, speakers, and upcoming events here and make sure to follow us on social media @globalexchange for updates and footage from the events.

The Democracy Defenders Roadshow continued last week in South Bend, Indiana, with a powerful gathering rooted in Black movements, reparations, and solidarity across the Americas.

On July 2, our delegation joined Black Lives Matter South Bend at the St. Joseph County Public Library for “Democracy in Black: Reparations, Repair, and Black Movements Across the Americas.” The event created space for a deep conversation about how democracy, racial justice, and material repair are connected, not only in the United States, but across the hemisphere.

Before the evening program even began, the group appeared together on WUBS 89.7FM, South Bend’s historic Black-owned community radio station, for a bilingual broadcast that helped reach the city’s Latino community. Despite record-breaking heat, the day was full of energy, connection, and purpose.

Jorden Giger opened the evening by connecting the Roadshow’s different stops and the shared struggles communities are facing across borders. Ted Lewis then offered an overview of the Roadshow and Global Exchange’s work to bring frontline democracy defenders into conversation with communities in the United States.

The panel featured moving reflections from Colombia, Mexico, and Guatemala. Alí Bantú Ashanti spoke about his work with Colectivo Justicia Racial, his racial justice collective in Colombia, and connected the fight against fascism and white supremacy to the concrete conditions communities need to survive and thrive, including access to potable water. Turning to the audience, he asked a question that captured the spirit of the evening: “Will you struggle with me?”

Elena Gutierrez spoke about the long struggle of Afro-descendant communities in Mexico to achieve formal recognition, a struggle rooted in centuries of history, marked by hard-won gains, and still far from complete.

Mynor Alonzo shared lessons from Indigenous communities in Guatemala that have built their own governance structures outside the formal political system, including community leadership models that address conflict, administer services, and protect the natural environment. His reflections offered a powerful reminder that democracy is not one fixed model, and that communities often create the systems they need when official structures fail them.

One of the most striking moments of the evening came during the Q&A, when Alí reflected on white supremacy as part of a broader global struggle. Drawing on Malcolm X’s evolving internationalist vision, he reminded the room that the fight against white supremacy is not separate from the fight for all oppressed people everywhere. It is the same struggle, and it cannot be won in isolation.

South Bend showed what the Roadshow is making possible: honest conversations across communities, histories, and borders; lessons grounded in lived experience; and a growing commitment to defend democracy by confronting the systems that deny people dignity, safety, and self-determination.

You can learn more about the roadshow, speakers, and upcoming events here and make sure to follow us on social media @globalexchange for updates and footage from the events.

As Colombia moves toward its presidential elections on May 31, the country stands at a pivotal political crossroads — one that will not only shape its domestic future, but also carry significant implications for Latin America as a whole.

Often described as one of the last remaining strongholds of progressive governance in the region, Colombia now faces an electoral cycle marked by intense political competition, shifting alliances, and growing polarization. The results of the March 8 legislative elections have already begun to redraw the political map. A fragmented Congress, the absence of clear governing majorities, and an increasingly complex path toward coalition-building are defining what comes next. Presidential candidates are now positioning themselves in what is shaping up to be a highly competitive and uncertain race, one that the rest of the region is watching closely.

Yet the deeper challenges facing Colombian democracy are not new — and they will not be resolved at the ballot box alone.

For communities that have lived through decades of armed conflict, the 2016 Peace Agreement represented a promise that politics, not violence, would be the terrain on which Colombia’s future was decided. That promise remains unfulfilled. Victims and former peace signatories who have tried to enter political life continue to face obstacles that formal guarantees have done little to remove. At the same time, in the wake of the legislative elections, questions about the reliability of the electoral system itself — including how votes are counted, who oversees the process, and whether institutions can be trusted — have moved to the center of public debate.

These questions will follow Colombia all the way to May 31.

This Thursday, we invite you to join us for the webinar Elections in Colombia: Challenges for Democracy, where we will take a closer look at this moment through the perspectives of those directly engaged in it.

Featured speakers:

Aura Camargo Mercado is a social leader and victim of Colombia’s armed conflict, and a former candidate for the Special Transitional Peace Districts (CITREP) — constituencies created for communities most affected by the conflict. She brings a firsthand perspective on the limitations that victims and peace agreement signatories face in accessing the right to be elected.

Rubén D. Acosta O., Scrutiny Delegate before Colombia’s National Electoral Council (CNE), brings a clear view of how the electoral system functions in practice, where it falls short, and what the coming months will demand of it.

Together, they offer something rarely available in these conversations: a grounded, firsthand account of what Colombian democracy looks like from within.

On October 18th Guatemala will celebrate its (non-violent) Democratic Revolution of 1944 with a new, democratic revolution, one that has arisen to defend their newly elected president, Bernardo Arévalo.

President-elect Arévalo does not take office until January 14th – nearly five months after his election on August 20th – and corrupt forces within the existing Guatemalan government have sought to use this long transition period to derail his administration before it even begins.  But Guatemalans have risen up to oppose them, mounting a powerful, nationwide campaign of resistance demanding the resignation of the corrupt officials behind what Arévalo calls a “slow-motion coup.”

The resistance campaign, buoyed by the critical leadership of “Ancestral Authorities” of Indigenous communities has been costly but resilient – even in the face of repression like the deadly armed attacks in Malacatan last Monday.

  • Édgar Gutiérrez who is a former Foreign Minister turned journalist. For years, his opinion columns and analysis published in many media outlets have helped the public better understand how corruption structures operate, as well as the links between corrupt officials, corrupting elites, and organized crime. This has earned him constant legal and media attacks, which is why he now lives in exile in Mexico.
  • Gregorio “Goyo” Saavedra is a young journalist and lawyer who has specialized in analyzing and denouncing “Lawfare” the corrupt manipulation of the legal system to attack political opponents. He will explain the “absurd” legal tactics being deployed by the losers of last August’s election as they attempt to undo its clear mandate for deep, institutional reform.

Global Exchange will be investigating, observing, and reporting on Guatemala’s historic (run-off) presidential elections. 
Tune in here for updates and news.

The August 20th election is in the international spotlight because emergent democratic forces represented by the Semilla Movement and their candidate, Bernardo Arévalo, won a run-off spot in the general elections that took place last June and then successfully defended it against trumped-up legal attacks that sought to disqualify their party and close the door on democracy.

Hundreds of observers are expected to be in the country during the election.

Tension between Guatemala’s authoritarian ruling structures and the democratic impulses of its people are nothing new.

In 1944 (during the final days of WWII) Guatemala had a popular uprising that brought Bernardo Arevalo’s father, Juan Jose Arevalo Bermejo out of exile and into the Presidency, where he built a broad consensus, modernized education, established the first ever labor code and created the social security system that still exists today.

When Arévalo’s successor, President Jacobo Arbenz, sought to expand those gains with a land redistribution program he came up against an implacable oligarchy that welcomed the notorious CIA led coup of 1954 that snuffed democracy and led to generations of terror, repression, civil war, and the genocide of Indigenous communities –much of it with the direct or implicit support of the United States.

Things began to improve in Guatemala following the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords, but recent decades have seen an upsurge in criminal violence, environmental destruction, and rampant corruption, while the structures of extreme wealth and enforced poverty continue much the same as in1944

History may or may not be repeating itself as the candidacy of Bernardo Arevalo takes center stage, but there is no doubt the Movimiento Semilla has created high expectations and infectious positive energy throughout Guatemala and Latin America.

Our delegation is being convened by CESJUL, the Bogota, Colombia based legal training and human rights organization. They have assembled a stellar group of journalists, human rights specialists, scholars, and elected officials from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and the United States.

Our observers will be just that, observers. And they will report on what they see.  That’s where you come in. Working closely with [Prensa Comunitaria] the journalists on our team will deliver contextual analysis and up to the minute coverage of this hotly contested event.

For the latest on upcoming pre, during and post election webcasts and live updates please visit our webpage.

¡Viva la democracia!