A community assembly is like a workers assembly, except its made up of residents in a particular community, like a neighborhood.  It is an inclusive space where everyone feels comfortable discussing the conditions in the community, speaking out, getting support for organizing, making decisions democratically, and building a more powerful movement led by the working class, especially the most marginalized.

A community assembly is a space to democratically develop plans to advance the demands of the community, establish its collective defense, coordinate militant actions to support demands, grow its communal capacity to sustain militant actions, and advance the movement for socialist revolution overall.

A community assembly can exist within a single specific neighborhood. It can also be made up of people from multiple neighborhoods as, for example, a city-wide assembly with the eventual goal of building an assembly in each neighborhood. Every circumstance is different. The goal is to grow the movement from the local toward larger city-wide, state-wide, and region-wide assemblies.

Assemblies are meant as a way to organize and unite a community behind the working class, especially it’s most marginalized. They’re meant to provide a space to focus on the immediate needs of the community. This could include addressing things like police violence, deportations, slumlords, evictions, lack of access to food, transportation, etc.

Community assemblies should always focus on collectively defending one another against the fascist threat. This threat is both immediate in terms of potentially coming for folks in the community, as well as the overall threat that fascists represent to everyone’s well being.

The issues of more immediate concern are combined with a broader, longer-term strategy and goal. As such, each community assembly organizes toward sharing resources communally. This is done to assist in supporting immediate activities, while preparing our capacity for sustaining blockades, occupations, strikes, etc.

In each case, the assembly prepares us for making decisions democratically, including as we build for a socialist revolution against fascism. What’s more, when we seize control of the government and economy, we need the assemblies to govern the whole thing, along with the help of the revolutionary organization.

Overall, the community assembly is a decolonizing process where we make decisions about our collective fight to dismantle colonial, neocolonial, and neoliberal systems. At it’s core is the project of dismantling patriarchy, racism, poverty, capitalism, oppression, exploitation, and violence. We replace those systems with the democratic governance of these assemblies as liberated spaces toward socialist revolution.

Basics of Organizing a Community Assembly

The community assembly puts the trust and leadership in the people assembled to make decisions together. It is an open space for people to enter the movement and become active participants and leaders. The assembly is facilitated to encourage maximum participation in order to practice direct democracy.

The community assembly is multi-racial, multi-generational, multi-ideological, and multi-gendered. It brings all the voices together and engages the thinking, experiences, and visions of all the participants in order to synthesize and democratically agree on action steps.

The Before / During / After cycle reflects the organizing process. Preparation, facilitation, participation, reflection, and follow-up is critical to advancing from one stage of development to the next. As each Assembly is organized, it should build on the previous lessons and accumulate knowledge towards future gains.

BEFORE

ORGANIZE a planning team of 4-10 people who meet to determine the goals, the agenda, and the recruitment strategy for the assembly.

INVITE people who are most affected by the issues your assembly addresses.

PREPARE the agenda, create the facilitation plan, support the facilitators, create the materials, and prepare the documentation plan.

PREPARE the participants with information about assemblies & expectations.

SET UP the space. Create an atmosphere that is welcoming. Place materials, maps, flipcharts, & art around the room. Consider the set-up of chairs and tables. Prepare sign-in table, food areas, water stations, breakout spaces, and work stations.

DURING

WELCOME the participants, acknowledge the planning team & hosts of the space. Create a way for people to know who is present & why they are there.

SET the context of the Assembly. Through speakers or exercises, discuss the purpose of gathering, goals of the assembly, the problems you are addressing, and the agenda.

NAME agreements, guidelines, and protocol for the assembly.

PRESENT analysis & historical background of the situation you are facing.

DISCUSS visions for a future where those problems are solved.

CREATE plan of action to move closer to those visions.

PROVIDE food, spaces for informal dialogue, and support for healing.

MAKE clear commitments to take action.

AFTER

COLLECT the documentation, sign-in sheets, notes, materials, photos, videos, and surveys.

SYNTHESIZE the notes, declarations, and reportbacks into a draft that captures the essence of the discussion, highlights new and shared ideas, and names clear action steps.

DEBRIEF with the facilitators, planning team, and organizers to evaluate lessons learned,

COMMUNICATE with all the participants. Share contact information, synthesis, pictures, videos, and quotes from the assembly.

COMMUNICATE with the broader community so that people know what was accomplished, what is happening next, and how they can get involved.

ORGANIZE to accomplish the goals and commitments set forth at the assembly. Establish or re-invigorate teams, working groups, and committees.

Welcome & Openings: Set the tone. Find out who is present. Name the purpose of the assembly.

Agreements: Establish working guidelines. Create parameters to support the goals. You can present basic guidelines out loud. Print guidelines in program & material. Write up the guidelines and visible in the space.

Describe the Problems: Provide political context. Name the oppressive systems communities are contending with. Discussion or exercises that surface the problems that people & systems face.

Describe Visions, Solutions, Strategies: Create space for participants to think beyond the problem. Generate ideas that are transformative & affect long-term systems change.  Small groups discuss particular issues or fronts
of struggle, generate visions & proposals for action.

Reportback: Provide opportunity for participants to share work. Ensure that the large assembly gets a sense of the whole. Fishbowl activity, 1-2 representatives speak to each other while whole assembly listens. Groups present one by one. Groups present creative reportbacks or skits.

Synthesize: Collect the information, analysis, visions, and strategies generated during the assembly. Small team is developed to discuss particular issues or fronts of struggle towards synthesis. Representatives from each group discuss the vision, strategies, & actions of the Assembly.

Commitments to Action: Vote on next steps. Create shared action plans. Name the impact the group wants to have. Participants commit to particular strategies. Individuals declare specific commitments. Work groups are developed & tasks are distributed.

Closing: Reflect the power of the assembly. Name the accomplishments. Represent the commitments moving forward. Circle the participants so that everyone sees one another & can feel the power of the whole assembly. Close with songs, chants, prayers, or ceremony.