This recording is part of Between the Lines, a Courage & Renewal author series that invites meaningful conversations with writers whose work helps us reflect deeply, live courageously, and lead with heart.
In this session: Kelly Hayes, author, movement educator, and organizer, joins the Center for Courage & Renewal’s Director of Strategic Initiatives Taylor Culliver for a conversation on the inner work of organizing and building, deepening, and repairing trust within movements. Drawing from her books Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (co-written with Mariame Kaba) and Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis, Kelly brings powerful reflections on reciprocal care, principled struggle, and how we sustain ourselves and one another when the ground feels unstable.
At a moment when it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or powerless, they share practical wisdom for taking first steps, renewing your energy, and staying grounded in movement work. The conversation explores the role of trust in taking collective action, renewing our spirits as we organize, and the power that truth-telling and imagination hold in sustaining long-term change.
Together, they explored:
- The practices and preparation needed to engage and sustain movement work
- How to build, sustain, and repair trust within movements and why being trustworthy is foundational to effective organizing
- The challenges posed by misinformation and artificial intelligence, and our responsibility to remain grounded, discerning, and committed truth-tellers
- Why collective vision and imagining beyond crisis are essential to creating a just and equitable world
