USCPR Youth Fellows Highlight: Power to the People

By Cat Knarr, USCPR Communications Director

This summer, I had the chance to meet USCPR Youth Fellow Craig Birckhead-Morton, who’s doing phenomenal organizing with the Yalies4Palestine student group at Yale University.

Craig is fighting to bring power back to the people. On an elite private institution campus, that means demanding Yale answer to its student body and local community, and end its complicity in human rights violations.

“That’s really the future we’re fighting for,” Craig told me. “It fundamentally has to be people-powered, people-centered, grassroots work with organic connections to the masses of the people. That’s what we’re doing, and that’s the spirit of what the fellowship is and the direction it’s pointing us towards.”

When you give to the USCPR Youth Fellowship program, you’re supporting leaders like Craig who are bringing power back to the people. Will you make a donation today to support USCPR Youth Fellows as they organize for justice and freedom?

While Palestinian people resist Israel’s repeated invasions and massacres, as well as violent Israeli settler pogroms, it’s all the more vital to organize in solidarity.

I met Craig and other Youth Fellows at the USCPR grassroots organizing convening in Chicago this summer. I was moved to see the power all these organizers across the country are building together. See highlights from the convening in the photos below!

With USCPR’s support, Craig is building coalitions for revolutionary demands. He’s been organizing Yalies4Palestine’s first BDS campaign to pressure Yale to cancel its contract with security firm G4S, known for running Israel’s police training academy.

Collectively, through organizing efforts across the country, the movement has achieved an even more significant win. Recently, G4S fully divested from apartheid Israel.

“It’s a huge win,” Craig told me. “And it’s a signifier of all the collective work, all the campaigns at schools in the U.S., even outside of academia and around the world.”

Thank you for your support of USCPR Youth Fellows and other grassroots organizers who are leading the future of our movement.

Now, applications are open for the Fall 2023 season! Apply to become a USCPR Youth Fellow by Sept. 10, 2023.

Cat Knarr is the Communications Director for the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.