Dear Reader,
“What time is it on the clock of the world?” For decades this is what Detroit-based organizer Grace Lee Boggs urged people to ask themselves and each other. We asked this question when we started planning the Katal Center. And we ask it now, in these perilous times.
This month we mark our 10-year anniversary. After founding Katal in 2015, we officially launched in February 2016.
In our first public message, I wrote about what we planned to do, and why:
“Across the country, movements are growing to end mass incarceration and the war on drugs, reform broken policing practices, end economic inequality, and advance racial equity. For those who believe in a more fair, just world, we have a unique opportunity and responsibility to contribute to this remarkable historical moment.
In this spirit, I’m pleased to announce the launch of … a new organization dedicated to building powerful, research-based campaigns to dismantle mass incarceration, end the war on drugs, cultivate leaders and organizing capacity, and advance equity, health, and justice. Our name, Katal, is inspired by catalysis: the acceleration of change by a catalyst, and the measurement of that change.”
We started Katal during a period of profound change in the country: people’s movements were growing to fight for climate justice, police accountability, racial and economic justice, and ending mass incarceration. It was the last year of Barack Obama’s second term, with surprisingly competitive presidential primaries that included Senator Bernie Sanders and the businessman/TV personality Donald Trump – two insurgents who were upending decades of assumptions about electoral politics. If nothing else, the ground was shifting.
What a decade it’s been. Over 10 years we’ve developed a membership base, built and launched numerous projects, organized persistently, trained thousands of people, and won a number of big campaigns. Our latest victory was in December, when the governor signed a jail and prison reform omnibus bill into law. Critically, this included our demands to overhaul the agency responsible for jail and prison oversight in New York.
We’re cooking up some materials and events to honor Katal’s first decade of work, and we look forward to sharing them with you in the months ahead.
As we look back over the past decade and turn to face what’s next, we continue to ask: What time is it on the clock of the world? The country is in turmoil as we reach this anniversary: Democracy is under threat and authoritarianism is on the rise; economic inequality is more extreme than at any point since the Gilded Age; armed, masked agents of the state are kidnapping people – including children – and sending them to concentration camps within the United States or to prisons elsewhere. Our constitutional republic is under attack by the current administration and its enablers.
And yet signs of hope and courage are everywhere, as more and more people across the country come together in nonviolent action. If you’ve followed Katal over the past year or even if you’ve read our recent 2025 impact letter, you know we are confronting this crisis: We’ve expanded our civic engagement activities with more explicit pro-democracy work and forged new relationships with groups working to protect our neighbors. We’ve collaborated with our partners fighting for immigrant rights to push back against ICE. And we’ve attended trainings about confronting authoritarianism and are now providing them. Organizing and collective action remain the strongest antidotes to authoritarianism.
Our work in New York continues as we organize across the city and state for a more equitable, healthy, and just world. We hope you’ll stick with us as we do our part in this moment: building community-based power and working with our partners to grow people’s movements from the ground up.
Thank you for your continued support. And thank you for being part of this thing we named the Katal Center.
With gratitude, and in solidarity,
gabriel
gabriel sayegh
Executive Director
To support our work, we invite you to make a donation – or even better, to become a monthly sustainer.
