Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution

Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution is an American non-governmental organization "rooted in the belief that the American Revolution is a living tradition whose greatest promise is democracy." Their purpose is to foster a broad-based democracy movement in the United States. Their programs include Democratizing Elections, [http://www.libertytreefdr.org/democratizingElections.htm] Democratizing Education, [http://www.libertytreefdr.org/democratizingEducation.htm] and Local Democracy. [http://www.libertytreefdr.org/localDemocracy.htm] They also publish a quarterly magazine, Liberty Tree: Journal of the Democratic Revolution. [http://www.libertytreefdr.org/getTheJournal.htm]

Early History

Early discussions about Liberty Tree occurred in 1999, in the buildup to the protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle. Liberty Tree's founders formed a fellowship [http://www.libertytreefdr.org/workWithUs.htm] which proceeded to coordinate three projects:

"Cities for People!"http://www.libertytreefdr.org/archive.htm] was a national coalition of twenty seven community, youth, labor, religious, political, and other civic organizations dedicated to offering an alternative, democratic agenda for the nation's largest cities. Cities for People! organized mass demonstrations protesting corporate involvement in setting the priorities of the June, 2002, annual national meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Cities for People! Also organized a conference on progressive municipal policy as an alternative the official mayors' meeting.

"Community Power 2002: First International Conference on Local Democracy". Held over three days in October 2002, this conference drew participants from 25 U.S. states and six countries. Panelists described the lessons of experiments in local democracy conducted in Montevideo, Uruguay, Porto Alegre, Brazil, Manchester, England, San Francisco, California, Arcata, California, rural Pennsylvania, Hartford, Connecticut, and Madison, Wisconsin.

In the Summer of 2004, Liberty Tree initiated the "No Stolen Elections!" campaign and the http://www.Nov3.US website, a broad-based mobilization to defend voting rights and protest attempts to manipulate the outcome of the 2004 presidential elections. After election day, the No Stolen Elections! campaign coordinated protests in scores of cities across the United States, and lent support to the Cobb/Badnarik recount in Ohio. The campaign succeeded, among other things, in seeding local voting rights groups across the United States.

The Liberty Tree Fellows formally incorporated the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution as a non-stock corporation in the state of Wisconsin in October 2004.

Recent History

References