Ear to the Ground Project

Ear to the Ground Project

The two coordinators of the Ear to the Ground process are N'Tanya Lee & Steve Williams.

After more than two decades of on-the-ground organizing in distinct organizations, the two of us have spent the last sixteen months on a unique journey together. We conducted more than 150 interviews with movement activists, read the work of movement intellectuals, and spent a lot of time in conversation with each other— in doing so, we pushed ourselves to imagine the world, and our own work, in new ways.

The Ear to the Ground project became a national research effort and a profoundly transformative process for us as individuals. While the project led to this final report, it’s political impact lies less in the words on these pages, but in the relationships and conversations created over the last year, and the ideas for new initiatives that emerged.

It’s been a year of ‘on-the-ground’ study that no book or report can replace or properly represent, but we hope that More than We Imagined, the report from the Ear to the Ground project, conveys the sense of the possibility that we feel.