Writer-Activist Fellowship

The Writer-Activist Fellowship brought social justice writer-activists to Madison for a semester-long residency, during which time they are expected to write, participate in local activities, and build ties with local social justice activists and organizations. The program was designed to provide a rare opportunity to activist public intellectuals to share the lessons and insights of their work, both through a writing project that would distill those lessons and through establishing and/or deepening relationships with local activists who would benefit from those lessons. This fellowship was made possible by the financial support and collaboration of the Link Friendship House (where fellows lived for the duration of their stay).

Spring 2015

A man with short, white curly hair stands outside before lush greenery. He has a soft smile and a white mustache. He wears rectangular black metal eyeglasses and an orange v-neck shirt. A metallic chain is worn about his neck.

BILL GALLEGOS is Director of the Energy Program and former Executive Director of Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), one of the preeminent environmental justice organizations in the nation. The mission of CBE is to build people’s power in California’s communities of color and low income communities to achieve environmental health and justice by preventing and reducing pollution and building green, healthy and sustainable communities and environments. Gallegos has more than four decades of experience in developing community-based organizations and coalitions, with such responsibilities as strategic planning, program development, staff development, resource development, and program management. Gallegos is the first recipient of the Havens Center’s Activist-in-Residence Writing Fellowship.

Lecture: “The Critical Relationship between US History and the Climate Crisis“

Lecture: “How a Grassroots Movement of People of Color Defeated Chevron Oil in Richmond, California“

Fall 2015

A man with a wide smile looks at the camera. He has short gray and white hair. He wears frameless eyeglasses with rectangular lenses. He wears a white button-down shirt (perhaps a barong).

WALDEN BELLO is senior analyst of Focus on the Global South and professor of sociology at the University of the Philippines. He is one of the leading critics of the current model of economic globalization, combining the roles of intellectual and activist. As a human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist and journalist, and through a combination of courage as a dissident, with an extraordinary breadth of published output and personal charisma, he has made a major contribution to the international case against corporate-driven globalization. During the fall 2015 semester, Bello is an Activist-in-Residence Writing Fellow with the Havens Center.

Lecture: “A Radical in the Congress: Opportunities & Constraints for the Left in a Liberal Democracy“

Lecture: “Odyssey of a Filipino Progressive“