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Connecting audiences to progressive public speakers on radio shows, podcasts, conferences, festivals, university talks, and other venues.
Alex S. Vitale
Alex S. Vitale is Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and a Visiting Professor at London Southbank University. He has spent the last 30 years writing about policing and consults both police departments and human rights organizations internationally.
Andrew Revkin
Andrew Revkin is one of America’s most honored, experienced and innovative journalists and conveners focused on environmental and human sustainability.
Ben Burgis
Ben Burgis is a philosophy professor at Georgia State University Perimeter College and the author of the best-selling "Give Them An Argument: Logic for the Left." He's a weekly contributor to Jacobin Magazine and he does a weekly segment on The Michael Brooks Show (TMBS) called "The Debunk."
Camille Bennett
Camille Bennett founded Project Say Something in December 2014 a nonprofit organization with a mission to confront white supremacy and misogynoir through black history using direct action, community empowerment, education and civic engagement to reconcile the past with the present.
Edwin Raymond
Edwin Raymond is a recently retired police Lieutenant, civil rights activist and now author who was born and raised in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. He joined the NYPD in 2008 after regularly facing discrimination at the hands of officers.
Eleanor Goldfield
Currently, Eleanor is the host of the podcast Act Out! and the co-host of the podcast Common Censored along with Lee Camp as well as the Silver Threads Podcast with carla bergman.
James Lane
James Lane is a citizen journalist, independent musician, internet media professional and has been a Green Party political activist for two decades.
Jasmine Banks
Jasmine Banks is the Executive Director of UnKoch My Campus, a national campaign that works with students, faculty, alumni, and community allies to expose and prevent donors like Charles Koch and his network from being able to buy undue academic influence in an attempt to legitimize and bolster their political and corporate agendas.
Jen Deerinwater
Jen Deerinwater (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) is the founding executive director of Crushing Colonialism and is a bisexual, Two Spirit, multiply-disabled journalist, speaker, and organizer who covers the myriad of issues her communities face with an intersectional lens.
Kim Kelly
Kim Kelly is a freelance writer and organizer born in rural South Jersey and currently based in Philadelphia. She is the labor columnist for Teen Vogue, and a columnist on class and labor at the New Republic and the Baffler.
Lee Camp
Lee is the head writer and host of the national TV show Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp on RT America.
Margaret Kimberley
Margaret Kimberley is a co-founder and Editor and Senior Columnist for Black Agenda Report.
Michael H. Goldhaber
Michael H. Goldhaber, though a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, has spent much of his life looking at the social impacts of technology, the nature of human thought, and related issues.
Mitchell Plitnick
Co-author of Except for Palestine: The Limits of progressive Politics, activist, founder of ReThinking Foreign Policy, founding co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace, founder of US office of B'Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
Nick Brana
Nick Brana is the National Director with the Movement for a People's Party, the national nonprofit at the helm of the rapidly growing movement for a new progressive political party in America.
Peter Coffin
Peter Coffin is a leftist content creator whose work ranges from ongoing video series to podcasts and is the author of Custom Reality and You.
Raymond Nat Turner
Raymond Nat Turner is artistic director of the stalwart JazzPoetry Ensemble, UpSurge! and has appeared at numerous festivals and venues including the Monterey Jazz Festival and Panafest in Ghana, West Africa.
Ron Placone
Ron Placone is a comedian who can be seen regularly on The Jimmy Dore Show and The Young Turks. He hosts the world’s first viewer-curated streaming news show, “Get Your News On With Ron.” He’s been on SiriusXM and seen on TMZ, RT, and FreeSpeechTV.
Solomon Goldstein-Rose
Solomon gives talks, workshops, and communications trainings for everyone from elementary school classes to business associations.
The Trillbillies
Tom Sexton, Tarence Ray, and Tanya Turner are hosts of the Trillbilly Worker’s Party, broadcasting from the heart of the coalfields in Whitesburg, Kentucky.
Tim Black
Tim is the host and founder of ‘Coffee with Tim Black’™, and the nightly ‘Tim Black Show’™ political shows covering current events, elections and social issues since 2013.
Van Jackson
Dr. Van Jackson is a professor of international relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, specializing in the politics of U.S. foreign policy and Asia-Pacific security.
Zago Brothers
We are 2 brothers who have been frustrated with world politics throughout much of our adult lives.
Progressive Speaker is an independent directory dedicated to progressive public speakers and their work.
We connect audiences with speakers who address the climate emergency, U.S. police violence and military aggression, single-payer healthcare, income inequality and other topics that are central to the progressive movement in the United States.
Support Independent Media and Journalists
Corporate media prioritize making money over producing adversarial journalism.
Address Our Ecological Collapse
We are living through an ever more undeniable climate crisis.
End The Wars
Wars are a major cause of violence, poverty, and underdevelopment.
Defund The Police — Invest In Communities
Compared to peer nations, the US spends significantly less on social services.
Medicare For All
The United States is the only high-income country without universal health insurance.
Workers Deserve a Living Wage
Make the minimum wage a living wage.
Serving the Progressive Movement
Our mission is to provide an independent platform for progressive speakers and to facilitate opportunities for transformative dialogue.
The challenge
The rise of neoliberalism, a political project based on privatization, deregulation, globalization, and austerity, has turned popular news and communication channels into advertising avenues that ultimately favor the interests of the few over the many. As a result, public figures calling for an economically and socially just society, and policies with large public approval, have been censored on mainstream media where consumerism and sensationalism run amok.
We believe such ideological limitations are corrosive to the democratic process and unfair to generations of Americans, regardless of their political affiliation. This is why we built Progressive Speaker—to serve the movement for social and economic justice in the U.S. by connecting audiences to the leading progressives of our times.
What do we mean by "progressive"?
Progressives recognize society's most pressing problems and address the systemic conditions that enable those problems in the first place. We don't pledge an allegiance to news channels or corporations. Instead, we stand by the people who are already fighting to end inequality, exploitation, discrimination, and environmental devastation.
Although we wear many hats (journalists, activists, media makers, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc.) we are united in our belief that those most affected by today’s structural problems—the working class, historically marginalized populations, and groups targeted by extremists—should be the generative base for devising and enacting potential solutions to those problems.
Capitalism and market forces are very powerful in producing wealth and innovation. But we need to ensure that these forces act in the common interest.