The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond

We believe our movement will only be as strong as our connection to our roots. We give time and attention to learning from history, and maintaining the foundational relationships that give us the fortitude to organize in every state in the United States, and internationally.

While the movement began hundreds of years ago, with the first organized resistance, we’ll start the story of our roots with the meeting of our co-founders. (This history was adapted from an earlier version developed by Diana Dunn and Ronald Chisom.)

Dr. James Norman Dunn, a professor at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio and a long-time, lifetime community organizer, poet, song writer, singer, visionary, historian and co-founder of a community based organization called HUMAN (Help Us Make A Nation) will meet Ronald Chisom, a community organizer from New Orleans, Louisiana, and a long time, lifetime “man of the people, a pure “culturalist,” rooted deeply in the sights, sounds, and smells of his native New Orleans and co-founder of a community-based organization called TCIA (Treme Community Improvement Association).

The two will first meet in New York City under the auspices of the United Methodist Church Voluntary Services Program (UMVS), as grantees coming together to share ideas and further develop their communities.