Kelly Hayes is a Menominee author, organizer, movement educator and photographer. She is the host of Truthout‘s podcast Movement Memos, and the creator of Organizing My Thoughts, a weekly newsletter about politics and justice work. She is co-author of the book Let This Radicalize You, with Mariame Kaba, and editor of the upcoming book, Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis. Kelly’s written work can also be found in Teen Vogue, The Huffington Post, Yes! Magazine, Pacific Standard, The Appeal and numerous anthologies. Her movement photography is featured in the “Freedom and Resistance” exhibit of the DuSable Museum of African American History.

Kelly was a co-founder of the Lifted Voices collective and the Chicago Light Brigade. She has led countless workshops over the years, and has trained thousands of people around the country in direct action tactics. Kelly has also served as a grassroots strategist, offering advice and analysis to groups across Chicago and the United States.

Kelly has co-organized major protests and campaigns during some of the most heated political moments of our times, including struggles for Native sovereignty, the fight to save the Affordable Care Act, the Mental Health Movement, the campaign to stop school closures under former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, and the successful effort to win reparations for survivors of police torture in the city of Chicago. Kelly has also co-organized and led trainings prior to some of the most significant protests in Chicago in recent history and has helped resistors around the country, from Boston College to the Pacific Northwest, hone their skills in the run-up to direct actions.

Recently, Kelly was a keynote speaker at Northwestern’s 2024 Women’s History Month symposium. Kelly also spoke alongside Mariame Kaba at the 2024 event Reading Together: Let This Radicalize You at University of California, Santa Cruz. She also delivered a keynote address at the 2024 Social Workers Confronting Racial Injustice Conference. In 2023, Kelly and Mariame facilitated an eight-week, skill-building training cohort for young organizers. Kelly has previously spoken at a wide spectrum of events including Ohi:Yo’ to Oṣun: Bridging Black & Native Shores, the Janine Soleil Youth Abolitionist Institute, Color of Violence 4, the Illinois Art Therapy Association Conference, the Women’s March in Chicago, and the GlobeMed Summit and the Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Asexual College Conference. Kelly has also given guest lectures at Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Chicago.

From direct action 101 trainings to sessions on advanced tactics, Kelly has led direct action workshops for young people, social justice groups and other intergenerational audiences around the country. Kelly also leads workshops at elementary and high schools in Chicago that focus on Indigenous struggles, campaigns to free people from prison, and transformative justice.

Kelly has also co-organized and led a number of successful grassroots funding efforts, including #FreedomDay (2019), which raised sufficient funds to free 22 migrants from ICE detention.

Header art by Kah Yangni.