THE 1ST YOUTH LED ELECTORAL JUSTICE SUMMIT IN THE UNITED STATES

June 21-24, 2024

Phoenix, AZ

We are so proud to share that Generation Vote hosted the first youth-led Electoral Justice Summit in the United States (and our first-ever national convening!). From June 21-24, 2024, we invited and brought together 85 young leaders - including our own GenVoters - and democracy experts from across the country to Phoenix, Arizona for the inaugural “Our Generation’s Electoral Justice Summit.” Over the span of four days, we digested the latest threats to our democracy & youth voting rights, strategized new youth-led electoral justice demands and prepared for the biggest democracy fight of our generation’s lifetime in the lead-up to 2025 and beyond.

The inaugural Our Generation’s Electoral Justice Summit was years in the making and is the spark for a generational project that can unite the youth movement in our fight for electoral justice and a truly just and multiracial democracy in the United States. Two years ago, Generation Vote relaunched as a national youth-led electoral justice organization and embarked on a new journey to build a movement of young leaders fighting for our right to vote and a just democracy for all. Our team spent years traveling the country to hear from hundreds of young people and democracy advocates, and we often heard the same thing: In order to make progress on any of the issues our generation cares about, there was an urgent need to create a youth-centered space to address the latest threats to our democracy and lay the foundation for our generation’s vision for electoral justice.

Like a phoenix, Generation Vote rose to the challenge and assembled an incredible squad of partners to convene the first youth-led space to reflect on the state of the youth and democracy movements, understand structural challenges facing our democracy including authoritarian attempts to take over our elections and suppress the vote of young people, and lay the foundation for a generational vision for a just democracy for all. We are proud to share the following results from the Summit:

• 85 young leaders attended the Summit (90% of attendees were Gen-Z and millennials, 60% identifying as BIPOC)
• 35 national and state-based organizations representing a wide berth of issues from democracy, gun violence prevention, immigration, student debt forgiveness, racial justice, gender justice, climate and tribal civic engagement and sovereignty.
• 19 sessions of programming
• Participants came from 14+ states, Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, and the Pechanga Band of Indians.
• Conducted 20 testimonial documentary-style videos for the Youth to Power video series: A documentary series for the Youth Movement