about joshua kahn russell

Joshua Kahn Russell is an organizer working to bridge movements for environmental sanity and racial justice. He currently works as Rainforest Action Network’s Grassroots Actions Manager, campaigning to end our addiction to coal and oil. Josh is a strategy and non-violent direct action trainer with the Ruckus Society. He spends much of his time on the road, building and supporting networks of activist groups across the country. In between strategy trainings, he helps develop young grassroots leaders, coordinates actions, helps groups build their capacity, and coordinates activist gatherings.

Joshua currently serves on the steering committee of the Energy Action Coalition, a youth led coalition of over 48 groups spanning the environmental spectrum to build youth power to solve the climate crisis.

In early 2006, Josh was a core organizer in reviving, launching and building the “new” Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a national multi-issue youth & student led group, which in less than a year had grown to over 250 chapters and nearly 3,000 members nationwide.

Joshua has contributed chapters to books such as Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century, We Don’t Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists, The Art of Coexistence, and the forthcoming Less Than Settled: Critical Reflections on Travel and Privilege. He has written internationally distributed zines, including Zen and the Art of Brownie Baking!, and Excuse Me, Can You Please Pass the Privilege?.

Joshua is a regular writer for Znet, WireTap, and It’s Getting Hot In Here, and his articles have appeared in Yes! Magazine, Left Turn Magazine, Peacework Magazine, Upping the Anti, Z Magazine, and Grist Magazine, among others.

His artwork has appeared on the cover of books authored by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, and Noam Chomsky, and in the Celebrate People’s History poster series.

He was a co-founder of the Activist Resource Center and other student groups at Brandeis University, where he graduated in 2006 with degrees in Women’s & Gender Studies and Sociology. At Brandeis he coordinated successful university-wide student strikes with the Brandeis Anti-war Coalition in March of 2003 to protest the invasion of Iraq, and again in May of 2006 on May Day in support of Immigrant Rights.

While at Brandeis, he was awarded a fellowship from the International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life; The Elise Boulding Sociology and Social Activism Award; Karpf Peace Award; and Brandeis Class of 1955 Endowment Fund Prize. During that time he has done international solidarity work in Cambodia, Jamaica, and Mexico with groups such as the Womyn’s Agenda for Change and the International Jamaican Council for Human Rights.

Josh Kahn Russell is a member of Bay Rising Affinity Group (BRAG!). He currently lives in Oakland, CA.