After exiting the Women’s March amid an antisemitism uproar, Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour is getting the band back together for the nation’s 250th birthday.
She heads Next250, a “multiyear initiative” seeking to hijack the semiquincentennial narrative with counterprogramming designed to “reclaim and reframe the story of America” around far-left talking points.
“America’s next 250 years start with us,” Ms. Sarsour said in a Sunday post on Facebook. “As attacks on voting rights continue, immigrant communities are targeted, and too many of our neighbors are pushed to the margins, this moment demands more than remembrance — it demands action.”
The “America at 250” campaign includes a series of “counter-narrative projects, mobilizations, cultural activations, and civic campaigns” from June 19 to July Fourth, with the centerpiece “mass mobilization” planned for June 27 in Washington.
The effort also features a “Declaration of Interdependence” that deemphasizes independence in favor of priorities such as “access to clean, green spaces” and “a living wage and benefits” for all workers.
“It’s a direct challenge to the top-down federal commemorations taking shape under the Trump administration — and positions grassroots, immigrant, Latino, and Indigenous voices at the center of how the country marks this milestone,” said Next250 in a statement.
Joining Ms. Sarsour are the other three original co-chairs of the Women’s March, the activist group that soared to fame with its massive 2017 anti-Trump protest before crashing amid an outcry over the leadership’s ties to Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam head known for his antisemitic rhetoric.
Three of the four co-chairs — Ms. Sarsour, Bob Bland and Tamika Mallory — stepped down in 2019, while Carmen Perez remained for a time to help with the transition.
Ms. Perez now serves alongside Ms. Sarsour as co-chair of the “America at 250” effort. Ms. Bland is also involved in Next250, according to her Instagram account, while Ms. Mallory’s group Until Freedom is a coalition partner.
Ms. Sarsour posted a photo on Instagram in April of the four former co-chairs at a Next250 event with the caption “Gang back together.”
The events are unlikely to be confused with the more traditional patriotic festivities being organized by two main groups: America250, the bipartisan nonprofit supporting the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission established by Congress, and Freedom250, the Trump administration’s initiative.
Not surprisingly, “America at 250” has an anti-Trump angle.
Organizers seek to challenge the “Trump administration’s whitewashing of American history.” The Sarsour squad aims to promote a “truer, more inclusive story of America’s past, present and future,” according to a May 27 press release.
“We’re framing it as a counter-commemoration ahead of the 250th anniversary and also a movement building opportunity,” said Trevor Smith, co-founder and executive director of the Black Liberation-Indigenous Sovereignty Collective, during a Monday media briefing on Zoom.
He said the gathering in Brooklyn, New York, on June 20, dubbed Reclamation Day, will feature artwork and cultural attractions designed to serve in part as a recruiting activity.
“We’re trying to reach the folks who might not go to a protest, they might not go to a rally, but they would come to a cultural gathering,” Mr. Smith said. “And then once we reach them through art and through culture, we can actually onboard them into movement participation.”
Organizers said they expect the June 27 flagship “mobilization” to fall shortly after the Supreme Court’s highly anticipated ruling on birthright citizenship.
What are the activists mobilizing for? The Next250 initiative touts five policy pillars: a “living wage for all,” “climate justice,” “reproductive rights,” “voting rights,” and “gun safety and peace.”
The fight for reparations for Black Americans also figures prominently.
Aria Florant, CEO of Liberation Ventures, is coordinating “Week of Repair” events from June 19-July 4 that “invite people to engage with concepts of reparations.”
“We’re investing in a whole collection of projects, events and storytelling that are all focused on getting Americans to reckon with the past and to acknowledge and take accountability for what we got wrong, and therefore envision a repair and healing future,” said Ms. Florant on the media call.
As is often the case with efforts billed as helping the poor, Next250 enjoys support from the rich.
Next250 is “housed” at One Fair Wage, a fiscally supported project of the Alliance for a Just Society, according to the Capital Research Center’s InfluenceWatch website.
The alliance’s donors include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, and Foundation to Promote Open Society, which is chaired by Democratic megadonor George Soros.
The Next250 campaign’s partners include the Movement for Black Lives, American Muslim Advisory Council, Justice for Migrant Women, 50501, Youth250, All of U.S. 250, and Get Free, which has called for a boycott of “Trump’s whitewashed 250th.”
“Together, we’ll follow in the footsteps of the freedom fighters who paved the way, embrace and reckon with our whole history, and create a country that finally rights longstanding wrongs and lives up to its ideals of freedom and equality for all, no matter our races, backgrounds, or genders,” said Get Free on its website.
