Thanks to Utne Reader for naming the Allied Media Conference organizers amongst the "50 Visionaries who are Changing the World" in their November/December issue, which is available in bookstores now. You can also read the full article here.
Also included amongst the 50 visionaries are Adrienne Maree Brown, AMP board member; the Empowered Fe Fes, who led one of the hottest workshops of AMC 2008; and brownfemipower, one of the AMC's key advisers.
Utne writes:
"Now this is what a 'conference' is supposed to look like: 800 concerned citizens and activists, most of them young and denim-clad, many of them people of color, queer, or both, gathered in Detroit on a crisp June day to create and critique media. There are no tote bags, no swag, no cocktail parties. Just tables full of radical literature, free hip-hop concerts, and late-night bowling.
"And you can forget about expense accounts and self-serving corporate sponsors. These people spend months raising funds to finance their trips from all over the globe, and conference organizers are squeaking by on their annual budget of $100,000, all of which makes the 2008 conference (the 10th annual) hum with a singularly engaged, productive energy. 'It really makes the event user-owned,' says Mike Medow, one of the conference’s five organizers. 'Everyone made a personal sacrifice or a personal investment to be here, and everyone has a deep stake in its success.'
"What’s more, what goes on at the hundreds of sessions and workshops doesn’t go the way of yet another stodgy PowerPoint presentation. Participants and presenters take what they hear and learn about taking back the media to heart—and back home. The radical parenting caucus, the lunchtime meeting for women of color with disabilities, the Youth Media Lab: no matter the specific subject area, it’s all about using the tools of journalism to strengthen and expand a grassroots push for democracy."