What if protest is not only about changing policy, but also about rebuilding the very fabric of democracy? In this episode of The Stakes, Kettering Foundation Research Fellow Deva Woodly of Brown University explains why today’s organizing is different. Rather than relying on national marches or traditional institutions, today’s protests are creating local communities for democratic connection that are training grounds for citizenship, mutual aid, and civic imagination. 

Woodly draws a parallel to the civic surge of the early 20th century, when Americans built the infrastructure that would later power the civil rights movement. She argues we must recover that scale of ambition now. From neighborhood book groups to local economic resistance, the work of democracy begins in community. This conversation reframes protest as a foundation for imagining the next democratic era.