Reclaim RI started when a group of volunteers decided that the organizational capacity of Bernie 2020 needed to continue after the campaign ended.
Our view is simple: Rhode Island has never belonged to the people. But if we work together, it could.
Values
● Equipping action: uplifting the lived experience of our members, while providing information and training that equips new leaders with the organizing skills we need to win.
● Collective flourishing: building solidarity within the multiracial working class to create a more egalitarian and free society.
● Community care: advancing inclusion, justice, and dignity for individuals and communities.
Vision
The Right to Thrive
● High quality public education, good housing, quality healthcare, fair wages for all.
The Right to Popular Democracy
● Popular education, neighborhood connectivity, collective power. The Right to Economic Justice
● Tax the rich, divest from the carceral state, reinvest in community. Economic democracy, including unionized and worker-owned businesses.
Dignity for All
● Ending the drug war, abolishing the carceral state
Mission
In order to win our vision, we:
● Elect champions for the people and pressure elected officials,
● Organize neighbors working at the local level to build power across the state,
● Mobilize people who have never thought of themselves as political organizers and empower ourselves with the knowledge, skills, and relationships to win change,
● Enact a culture of strengthening solidarity across difference, developing new leaders, and building community power.
Adopted by Reclaim Membership Vote 5/18/21
Press
- Boston Globe: House passes $13.6 billion R.I. budget after rejecting GOP amendments (6/16/2022)
- Providence Journal: House passes $13.6-billion budget (6/16/2022)
- Providence Journal: ‘Just getting more and more dire’: Senate panel weighs ‘bold’ affordable housing proposal (6/1/2022)
- UpriseRI: Rhode Island legalizes recreational cannabis (5/26/2022)
- Boston Globe: Legislators vote to legalize recreational marijuana in Rhode Island (5/24/2022)
- Boston Globe: Revised R.I. marijuana bill would make expungements automatic (5/17/2022)
- Boston Globe: Senate bill would create state Department of Housing (5/13/2022)
- UpriseRI: Reclaim RI responds to House budget that refuses to increase taxes on the one percent (6/20/2021)
- UpriseRI: Reclaim RI’s 420 rally for racial and economic justice in cannabis legalization law (4/21/2021)
- The Providence Journal, Opinion: How to make America great again, for all by Reclaim member Gigi Maniscalchi Edwards (4/2/2021)
- The Providence Journal, Opinion: Marijuana legalization and the case for worker cooperatives by Reclaim organizers Kinverly Dicupe and Tyler Brown (3/2/2021)
- Teen Vogue: Rhode Island Progressives Won Big in 2020 With Help From Youth Activists (12/29/2020)
- UpriseRI: Despite a difficult year, Rhode Island passed a decent 2021 budget -- We can do better for 2022 (12/19/2020)
- UpriseRI: Coalition rallies for taxes on rich to fund essential services (11/21/2020)
- The Providence Journal: Advocates urge tax hike for RI’s top earners at State House rally (11/21/2020)
- The Providence Journal, Opinion: Saying no to an austerity budget in RI by Reclaim member Tom Sgouros (11/18/2020)
- The Forge: Reclaiming Rhode Island in a Movement Moment by Reclaim organizers Mie Inouye & Rithika Ramamurthy (8/4/2020)
- The Providence Journal: Honor Black lives with a just budget by Reclaim organizer Kinverly Dicupe (6/21/2020)
- UpriseRI: Reclaim RI campaign has a simple demand (5/24/2020)
Steering Committee:
Co-Chairs: Rithika Ramamurthy and Daniel Denvir
Electoral Coordinator: Jordan Goyette
Membership Coordinator: Nora Caplan-Bricker
Organizing Director: Miguel Martinez-Youngs
Policy Directors: Brandon Welch and Tom Stackpole
At Large: Cassie Tharinger
Treasurer: Tyler Brown
Secretary: Ariel Tavares