menu_open Columnists
Kelly Hayes

Kelly Hayes

HuffPost

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Let’s Learn and Live Lessons in Collective Survival Together

Let’s Learn and Live Lessons in Collective Survival Together

“We are really good at finding what's wrong with each other,” says author and podcaster Margaret Killjoy.

thursday 1

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Here’s How Chicago Educators Are Defending Their Students From Trump’s Attacks

Here’s How Chicago Educators Are Defending Their Students From Trump’s Attacks

They’ve created resources that may be helpful to other teachers who are developing sanctuary plans to protect students.

07.02.2025 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

We Won’t Take Risks Alone. Our Relationships Make a Better World Possible.

We Won’t Take Risks Alone. Our Relationships Make a Better World Possible.

Tenant unions can teach us to strategize “with every lever that we have,” says tenant organizer Tracy Rosenthal.

06.02.2025 1

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

We Aren’t Powerless in the Face of Trump’s Outrageous, Anti-Trans Edicts

We can’t prevent all of this administration’s harms, but we can greatly diminish their impacts if we organize.

31.01.2025 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Trump Needs Public Cooperation to Enact a Fascist Vision. Here’s How We Refuse.

Our resistance to fascistic policies must be grounded in our sense of justice, rather than arguments about what’s legal.

22.01.2025 20

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

In 2025, We Must Show Up for Each Other and Our Movements

A new, intimidating year is upon us. Catastrophes abound and the threat of autocracy looms large. As we prepare ourselves for the struggles ahead,...

31.12.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Let’s Create New Traditions That Celebrate Mutual Care for the Holidays

Every year, I take joy in supporting the Holiday Solidarity Toy Drive organized by Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration (MUAVI). Launched...

18.12.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

We Can’t Relinquish Our Demands and Solely Play Defense During Trump’s Next Term

For many of our readers, the writings of Kelly Hayes and Maya Schenwar — longtime organizers and oft-time collaborators — are likely touchstones...

13.12.2024 3

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

With Anger Roiling Around Health Insurance, Will We See a Class Awakening?

On Monday, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was arrested for the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. In the days following the December 4...

12.12.2024 4

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

How Immigration Organizers Are Gearing Up for Another Trump Era 

“It’s inherently a racial justice and economic justice fight,” says Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network. In this episode,...

05.12.2024 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

2 Months After Hurricane Helene, How Are Impacted Local Organizers Coping?

“It’s been two months since the storm,” Asheville organizer Sarah Nuñez told me. “Two months that felt more like six.” In late September, Hurricane...

03.12.2024 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Rebecca Nagle Calls for Confronting the Legacy of Colonization and Its Ongoing Threat to Native Rights

The Thanksgiving holiday is rooted in colonial myth-making. While many gatherings this week will be divorced from that mythology, this is...

28.11.2024 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

We Must Contest the Christian Right’s Agenda in Every Venue of Our Lives

“Our enemies are waging a war, and to many of them, it’s a holy war,” says “Movement Memos” host Kelly Hayes. In this podcast episode, Hayes...

21.11.2024 4

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

How Must We Reorient Our Movements Under a Second Trump Administration?

What will it mean to resist fascism under a second Trump administration? During Trump’s first term, we saw mass marches, blockade actions, and...

15.11.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Let’s Move Beyond Blame to Fight for Each Other in the Face of Fascism

This is a moment of tragedy and turmoil for our movements. A fascist game show host has seized the reins of government, again, and is now poised to...

08.11.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

To Transform Our Trauma, We Must Nurture Movements for Change

“We really have a big opportunity right now to decide, within traumatic conditions and circumstances, how we are going to show up, again and again,...

06.11.2024 4

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

The Right Is Crafting Its Own Horror Story to Cast “Others” as Monsters

It’s a scary season, and many of us feel haunted by sinister forces — no horror movie required. With the presidential election looming and Nazis...

31.10.2024 1

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

How Do We Prepare for Election Day Threats Amid Rising Right-Wing Violence?

The 2024 presidential election is creating major safety concerns for election officials, poll watchers, activists, and marginalized communities....

25.10.2024 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

From the Ashes: How Grief Shapes Our Struggles

“The capitalist system also doesn’t care if we die. So insisting on the value of human life, insisting on grieving, particularly grieving publicly...

24.10.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Hurricane Season Has Revealed the Right’s New Climate Denial Playbook

On Thursday, U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote a social media post declaring, “Yes, they can control the weather. It’s ridiculous...

11.10.2024 4

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Keeping Each Other Alive: Mental Health and Collective Survival

“I’ve seen a lot of people lashing out at people horizontally, and my gut sense is that sometimes it happens because the folks who are lashing out...

10.10.2024 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

After Helene, Mutual Aid Becomes a Lifeline in North Carolina

Last year, researchers at Tulane University ranked Asheville, North Carolina, as one of the most “climate-resilient cities” in the United States —...

04.10.2024 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Breaking Down Sudan’s Struggle: What the World Is Missing

“This war is not a civil war, it’s a counterrevolutionary war against civilians. It’s a war of military elites against the entire civilian...

26.09.2024 3

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

The Far Right Is Creating Emblematic Narratives for People to Latch Onto

This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom made good on a promise to crack down on deepfakes by signing two bills into law. The bills require...

21.09.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Our Power Is Where We Choose One Another”: Abolitionists Discuss Our Moment

“This is a moment that is going to be looked back on 50 years from now, 100 years from now, and what is going to be said of us is how we came out...

12.09.2024 9

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

For Our Movements to Win, We Must Learn How Not to Let Our Grief Destroy Us

Unprocessed grief is a major fault line in our movements and in our society at large. Tragedy and loss abound, and yet, we often lack the tools —...

07.09.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Remembering How to Care: Lessons From Deep Space Nine

“The immediacy of the crisis that we’re in demands a new society and not in some imagined future, but now,” says Rehearsals for Living coauthor...

29.08.2024 5

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Normalizing Nazi Rhetoric Won’t Further the Goal of Palestinian Liberation

This week, leftists on multiple social media platforms debated whether the acronym “ZOG” is an accurate or acceptable descriptor for the United...

17.08.2024 1

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

It’s “Open Season” on the Unhoused. We Must Oppose It.

“We don’t have a housing system, we have an unhousing system,” says author and organizer Tracy Rosenthal. In this episode of “Movement Memos,”...

15.08.2024 2

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Don’t Let the Electoral Circus and Its Side Shows Weaken Your Political Will

In the United States, presidential elections can be mesmerizing. Even people whose political work does not center electoral politics often become...

05.08.2024 3

Truthout

Kelly Hayes

Radical Acts of Care: From Underground Abortions to Militant Clinic Defense

“When you’re engaged in political work that is as embodied and vulnerable, uncharted and courageous as self-help, you’re really harnessing...

01.08.2024 10

Truthout

Kelly Hayes