We Poor Not Stupid! Lessons Learned in the Political Schools of the Urban Poor in Cape Town and Champaign County

Ken Salo opened with lessons from housing and shack-dweller movements in Cape Town, drawing on Paulo Freire and Fanon to argue that displaced people theorize and act for themselves. Danielle Chynoweth then presented local data from Cunningham Township on poverty rates, seasonal unemployment, rent burden, housing-voucher waitlists, vacant apartments, and the invisibility of homeless women and children, closing with a theory of change built on storytelling and contradiction. Audience discussion touched on town-gown segregation and the land-grant mission.