Cynthia Kaufman

Cynthia Kaufman is the director of the Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action De Anza College, where she runs and teaches in a community organizer training program. She is the author of three books on social change: Challenging Power: Democracy and Accountability in a Fractured World (Bloomsbury, 2020), Getting Past Capitalism: History, Vision, Hope (Lexington Books, 2012), and Ideas for Action: Relevant Theory for Radical Change (2nd Edition PM Press, 2016). She has been active in a wide variety of social justice movements including Central American solidarity, union organizing, police accountability, and most recently tenants’ right and climate change. She publishes on social justice in Common Dreams.