PRAXIS
A Phrontistery for Black Revolutionaries
HOW TO QUALIFY FOR PRAXIS:
Step 1: Application
Deadline: July 31, 2021
Our process begins with a comprehensive application that analyzes lived experience, assesses skill level, checks for value alignment and indicates readiness to join 400+1's next cohort off vanguard members.
Applications will be accepted until July 24th at 11:59 p.m. PST. Accepted applicants will be contacted to schedule an interview. Applicants that apply closer to the July 24th deadline should be prepared to complete their interview, orientation and disruption container participation by July 31st.
Step 2: Interview
Deadline: July 31, 2021
400+1 will arrange for accepted applicants to meet and interview with Ministers of Cohesion. This allows us to share space, determine energetic compatibility and begin the process of forming intentional community. Interviews will be conducted at 400+1 headquarters over the course of three days.
Travel and lodging assistance is available. All interviews must be completed by July 31st.
Step 3: Orientation
Deadline: July 31, 2021
400+1's Ministers of Cohesion will guide new members through a month long orientation. Orientations are quartered and facilitated weekly to ensure complete comprehension of and enthusiastic consent for the process that follows.
All orientations must be completed by July 31st.
Step 4: Disruption Container Participation
Deadline: July 31, 2021
400+1 uses disruption as a radicalization and value alignment tool that leverages sensory experience in pursuit of authentic interrogation. New members will have the opportunity to attend a virtual disruption container to prepare for study group participation.
All applicants must participate in a disruption container by July 31st.
Step 5: Collective Specific Retreats
Deadline: August - September 2021
During retreat stage, new members practice placement specific strategies in physical space with one another. Members are evaluated for comprehension of 400+1's movement theory, understanding of collective responsibilities, general compatibility, and commitment.
At this stage, the question is "where will we go together" and new members simply focus on imagining!
Step 6: Study Groups
Deadline: October - November 30, 2021
Study groups are remote, occur weekly, and last for two months. Participants are provided with pdf or printed versions of materials.
Upcoming study groups will focus on 400+1's politic, application of that politic to 400+1's movement theory, and evaluation of individual placement.
Step 7: Disruption Container Facilitation
Deadline: December 31, 2021
Matriculation participants will design, host, and facilitate full day disruption containers in cities in their home cities. Container themes should coincide with newly acquired knowledge from study group stage.
Our disruption containers are an attempt to interrupt harmful social conditioning that inhibit the capacity to lean into revolutionary politics and culture. They are also an opportunity to dive, emotionally and physically, into the concepts we cover in our study groups.
Disruption container participants are encouraged to invite their friends, families, and communities.
Step 8: All Federation Retreat
January 2022
The final challenge of the matriculation process will test members' ability to complete placement specific challenges and tasks while also evaluating vanguard cohesion and proficiency. Individual members will also be challenged and evaluated on their skills, instincts and demonstrated commitment to 400+1 movement theory.
FINAL STEP:
PRAXIS
Beginning in April 2022
Finally, new members are graduated to Praxis: A Phrontistery for Black Revolutionaries, a four phase project that includes a 3 year traveling residency and a 4 year residential experience. Individuals and families who commit to praxis are supported with free housing, subsidized meals, and a basic income program.
Destroy Capitalism.
400+1’s connection to Marxist-Leninism, and Black Marxism is undeniable. Take a deep dive into anti-capitalist theory and imagine, construct, and plan for the classless, moneyless, stateless society we all deserve. Don’t forget to learn to bear arms, and enhance your ability to communicate with other members of the Diaspora.
Eat the Rich.
We are socialists of no nation, but what would happen if that dynamic shifted? Join us in our pursuit of Cuba’s collective truth through the collection of the thoughts, opinions, anecdotes and experiences of everyday people. Analyze Cuba’s journey from home to the Ciboney Taino people to a formidable Marxist-Leninist socialist state. Our time in Havana will be spent interrogating the Cuban revolutionary vanguard, Castro’s choices, and the republic’s potential to evolve from socialism to communism. Help us confront the anti-Black racism that survived in what should be a liberated society. Guerilla warfare is both a principle and a project during this meditation on revolution. Be ready.
Off the Pigs.
If your vanguard isn’t developing alliances with the colonized and positioning itself to defeat imperialism, then what are we talking about? Practice? Build connections in Loiza, Puerto Rico; a Yoruba settlement of escaped slaves that, for centuries, has preserved its culture in the face of colonial occupation. Study the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist work of Frantz Fanon and place Puerto Rico in the context he’s provided us. Place the debt crisis in the context he’s provided us. Place Hurricane Maria in the context he’s provided us. Place Rosello in the context he’s provided us. Puerto Rico’s resistance is significant to revolutionary struggle. How are we in support of it? Black love, and spiritual action are all centered principles and projects during this exploration of our own potential to win. Your body is a weapon.
Revolutionaries Are Welcome Here // Africa for Africans.
The Continent’s position within Diasporic revolutionary struggle has always been and has only grown more complicated over time, with the fight against colonial and imperialist powers being one of few crystallized moments of potential Pan-Africanism. It was different with Ghana. It was different with Nkrumah. His vision of African socialism and a synchronization of African tradition with equitable distribution a Black Marxist dream, where did his revolutionary praxis fall short? As we look toward building a socialist and, eventual, communist Black future what are the ways we envision systemizing just transition? As we dream of Black autonomy, how do we envision the global interdependence and fierce allyship that may be necessary to support post-revolutionary life? When should we begin developing those relationships? Now seems as good a time as any.
Black Power.
Imagine that we’ve physically driven the oppressor from our space. It’s just us now, but the intangible remnants of white supremacy remain. Imagine that the structures upheld by capitalism and toxic democracy, albeit maintained by our own skinfolk, are beginning to crumble around us. Revolution is a long process. Now what? Come with us to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to sit, humbly, at the feet of our ancestors; the revolutionaries who established the first Black republic so that we might honor them by taking another step toward liberated land, toward free Black society. Spend seven days with the Avril family, connecting with those ancestors through the art and practice of Haitian fencing. Embrace the opacity of Hatian Creole. We won’t let you leave without learning. Most importantly, put our conceptualization of the L3 village to the test through contextualization and practice.
Shoot to Kill.
The history of resistance in South Africa is strong, with the legacy of The ANC and Nelson Mandela in his early years nestled firmly in the minds of Pan-Africanists across the globe. Mandela’s momentum was ultimately compromised by nearly thirty years in prison and his eventual release revealed a man whose revolutionary spirit had been stolen. Today, revolutionaries in South Africa are forced to proclaim themselves a discontinuation of Mandela’s trajectory. Julius Malema and the Economic Freedom Fighters are poised to fight for a new South Africa. What might we learn and how might we help?
Our Word Is Our Weapon.
In Chiapas, Mexico, Praxis students will pour over the history of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. What nuance exists within the concept and practice of decentralization? The vanguard may catalyze revolution, but party politics can’t carry us all the way to freedom. Experiment with the power of narrative, autonomy, and charismatic leadership. We must give EZLN its flowers while it’s here.
Phase Three
Read below.
Phase Two | Feb.-Dec. 2022
On Gang: Vanguardism, Charismatic Leadership, and Revolution in the Global South
January - April 2023
Enjoy the breathtaking views of The Basque Country while exploring the constellation of connection between Spain’s notorious and revolutionary Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the strength of U.S. influence on and support of counterrevolutionary movements after September 11th, and the impotency rendered upon revolutionary movements by neoliberalism.
May - August 2023
Join 400+1 in Ha Noi, Vietnam to break down communism’s momentous victory in the face of determined, U.S. imperialism. Strategic propaganda, brilliant narrative building, unmatched political organizing, charismatic leadership, unyielding revolutionary spirit, and domestic unrest are all the heart of this case study for resistance. Examine the position in which America found itself in 1975 and explore the possibility of recreating those very conditions.
Sept. - Dec. 2023
Spend the final wave of Praxis’s existence as a traveling institution in Lebanon with 400+1’s L1 collective. Dive into U.S. Foreign Policy and interrogate its impact on the Palestenian struggle. Learn the intricacies of the United Nations as a political entity and position yourself in relation to international law.
Our Word Is Our Weapon.
Read below.
Phase Three | Jan. - Dec. 2023
Studying the Opps: Victories and Losses of the Imperialist Machine
Jan. 2024 - Spring 2028
Details of Phase Four will be shared only with those who are accepted to the final stage of the program.
Phase Four | Jan. 2024 - Spring 2028
