S1E5: Debt Collective organizers on crafting campaigns against an idea and generating “inside game” leverage by keeping up “outside” pressure

No single executive order by President Biden may be as consequential as the one he signed in August, that may soon lead to forty million people having all of their student debt wiped away. But most of the stories chronicling the path to mainstream acceptance of student debt cancellation leave out the first five years the organizers were largely ridiculed and ignored... until they launched the nation’s first student debt strike, and ended up at a bargaining table with the Secretary of Education. 

In this episode, we’ll hear about the campaign’s beginning at Occupy Wall Street (16:01) and its “scouting” phases (13:20); how they used crowdfunded medical, bail and student debt cancellation as an outreach tactic ( 13:42); “dropping a bomb” in a red box on Obama Administration officials (29:00); how they kept up outside pressure even when they were at the bargaining table (32:12); how their basebuilding and casework influenced the 2019 Democratic presidential primaries (36:13); focusing on Black women borrowers (43:25) and building a broader coalition to keep the pressure on (43:37). 

You can watch some of the Debt Collective's actions, referenced in the episode, on their website.

Ann Bowers is a former Corinthian Colleges Inc student and organizer with the Debt Collective. 

Eleni Schirmer is a writer, educator and organizer. Her writings have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Nation and Boston Review, and elsewhere. She currently works as a research associate with the Future of Finance Initiative at UCLA's Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, and organizes with The Debt Collective. 

Check out a writeup on this campaign at our website and at The Forge.

Support the show

Visit www.trainingforchange.org for workshops and training tools, or to make a donation. Follow us on social media @tfctrains. The Craft of Campaigns podcast is made possible by grassroots donors. We welcome your feedback; if you like these episodes, please consider donating, to keep the show running. This podcast is hosted by Andrew Willis Garcés and produced by Ali Roseberry-Polier.