The International Republican Institute (IRI) is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1983 and funded and supported by the United States federal government. Most of its board is drawn from the Republican Party. Its public mission is to advance freedom and democracy worldwide by helping political parties to become more issue-based and responsive, assisting citizens to participate in government planning, and working to increase the role of marginalized groups in the political process, including women and youth. It has been repeatedly accused of foreign interference and has been implicated in the 2004 Haitian coup d'état. It was initially known as the National Republican Institute for International Affairs.
The Cuban Democratic Directorate is a nongovernmental organization that supports the human rights movement in Cuba. The organisation is heavily financed by the United States government through the National Endowment for Democracy program, receiving $650,000 in 2022.
Ryan W. Grim is an American author and journalist. Grim was Washington, D.C. bureau chief for HuffPost and formerly the Washington, D.C. bureau chief for The Intercept. In July 2024, Grim and The Intercept's co-founder Jeremy Scahill left The Intercept to co-found Drop Site News. He is an author and has published some of his books through Strong Arm Press, an independent progressive publishing house he cofounded. Grim and conservative journalist Emily Jashinsky were the regular Friday hosts of Rising before they resigned in September 2022 and joined Breaking Points, where they host the show Counterpoints.
Pavel Yahoravich Marozau is a Belarusian and Estonian civic activist, media manager and web producer.
Joseph Kishore is an American Marxist and writer who has been active in the Trotskyist movement since 1999. He is the National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and a writer for the World Socialist Web Site.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is a big tent, democratic socialist political organization in the United States. After the Socialist Party of America (SPA) was renamed Social Democrats, USA, Michael Harrington formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC). The DSOC later merged with the New American Movement (NAM) to form the DSA. The organization is headquartered in New York City and has about 80,000 members. It leads organizing and protest campaigns, and has members in the House of Representatives, state legislatures, and other local offices.
Marion Bethel is an attorney, poet, essayist, filmmaker, human and gender rights activist, and writer from Nassau, The Bahamas.
The Organization of Women Writers of Africa (OWWA) is an organization for women writers in Africa. Founded in 1991, the OWWA aims to promote the oral and written literature of African women, and address issues concerning publishing, censorship and human progress.
Maya D. Wiley is an American lawyer, professor, and civil rights activist. She has served as president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights since May 2022. Wiley served as counsel to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. She chaired the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) from 2016 to 2017. She was an MSNBC legal analyst from August 2018 to January 2021. Wiley ran in the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, placing third.
Alika Hope is the founder and primary vocalist for the Ray of Hope Project. She was born in Oregon and received a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Notre Dame. Hope also minored in dance at St. Mary's College. She went on to receive a Master of Arts in early childhood special education from Teachers College at Columbia University.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known as AOC, is an American politician and activist serving since 2019 as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Omezzine Khelifa is a Tunisian politician, activist, and social entrepreneur. Born on 7 July 1982 in Carthage she was raised in La Marsa in the northern suburb of Tunis. After earning her high school diploma in mathematics, she moved to France where she finished her studies as a telecommunications and computer science engineer, specialized in networks and distributed applications. She worked in the finance field as a consultant for Société Générale Investment Banking and fintech compagnies.
The Pravo Ljudski Film Festival is an annual human rights documentary film festival held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The name translates to Totally Human. It was established in 2006 with the goal of promoting socially engaged non-fictional audiovisual projects, dedicated to the development of critical spectatorship through socially engaged documentaries and independent art cinema. It is held for two weeks in November. The festival has developed an independent non-profit civic association under the same name. It is the largest festival of its kind in Southeastern Europe.
Vote Run Lead is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that trains women to run for office in the United States. Founded in 2014 by Erin Vilardi with co-founders Rhonda Briggins, Shannon Garrett, Pakou Hang and Liz Johnson, it is nationally recognized as the largest, most diverse candidate training program for women.
Kerri Evelyn Harris is an American activist and politician who is the Democratic state representative for Delaware's 32nd district. She was previously a Democratic candidate for United States Senate in 2018, mounting an unsuccessful primary challenge to incumbent US Senator Tom Carper.
Sunrise Movement is an American 501(c)(4) political action organization that advocates political action on climate change. When launched in 2017, the movement's goal was to elect proponents of renewable energy in the 2018 midterm elections, first in the Democratic primaries and then in the general election held on November 6, 2018. Since the midterm elections, the movement has been working towards shifting the Overton window on climate policy to center the environmental program known as the Green New Deal.
Rachel Lears is an American independent documentary filmmaker. She is the director of Knock Down the House (2019), a documentary film about four women running for Congress in the 2018 midterms, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival in January 2019 and was sold to Netflix for $10 million, releasing on May 1, 2019. Her other documentaries include The Hand That Feeds (2014), about undocumented immigrant workers in a labor dispute with owners at a Manhattan bakery café, and To the End (2022), about climate change.
The Squad is an informal progressive and left-wing coalition in the U.S. House of Representatives forming part of the Democratic Caucus. All are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
The 2018 New York's 14th congressional district election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. The primaries for New York's federal elections were held earlier in the year on June 26. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated incumbent congressman Joe Crowley in the primary, and went on to defeat Republican opponent Anthony Pappas in the general election.
