Midwest Social Forum
The Midwest Social Forum (MWSF) is an annual gathering that creates a space for grassroots organizations, community activists, educators, students, and others committed to social justice to come together to exchange experiences and information, strengthen alliances and networks, and devise strategies for progressive social, economic, and political change. The MWSF builds on both regional and global traditions and sources of inspiration. It has its origins in the Midwest Radical Scholars and Activists Conference, which was founded in 1983 by the Havens Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and later renamed RadFest in the late 1990s. In 2003, the title Midwest Social Forum was added, inspired by the World Social Forum and the similar principles on which it was established, most importantly its commitment to diversity, democracy, and politically non-sectarian dialogue and deliberation, and to making a better, more just world possible (see WSF Charter of Principles here). Reflecting its growing identification and connection with the broader Social Forum movement, in September 2005, the MWSF organizing committee decided to drop the name RadFest and go solely by the title Midwest Social Forum. The Midwest Social Forum organizing committee is composed of individuals from a variety of Midwest-based social justice, grassroots, community,